The 10 greatest HBCU dynasties, now including North Carolina A&T

The Celebration Bowl has been kicking off bowl season and crowning the semi-official HBCU national champion since 2015. It is indeed a celebration, a meeting of the MEAC and SWAC champions, and it’s helped spread awareness and applications around the historically black college universe.

At least, it was before NC A&T started winning the damn thing every year.

On Saturday, the Aggies took their third title, jumping out to an early lead on Alcorn State and holding on, 24-22. It was noteworthy not only because it was their third championship in four years, but also because it meant the winning ways continued following the retirement of legendary head coach Rod Broadway.

Successor Sam Washington’s A&T beat East Carolina and FCS powerhouse Jacksonville State in September, then won once more in Atlanta in December.

There are nearly twice as many claimed HBCU titles as there are actual seasons of play — 177 across various divisions in 99 seasons, to be exact.

And the Celebration Bowl’s existence hasn’t dampened the claims. Division II and NAIA rankings still crown HBCU champs of their own.

And including A&T’s wins over FBS opponents — Kent State in 2016, Charlotte in 2017, ECU in 2018 — you could say the Aggies have put together one of the most impressive runs in the history of HBCU football.

That history is a tough thing to judge. NFL teams didn’t really begin looking toward HBCUs to stock two-deeps until the 1960s (but those who did quickly found immense competitive advantages), and teams from black colleges didn’t really get chances to play non-HBCU teams until the 1970s, after de-segregation had begun and Southern schools had begun admitting black athletes.

The further we go back in history, the harder it is to gauge the quality of these teams — the pro talent lets us know they were probably awesome, but the lack of head-to-head results against outside teams makes it tricky.

Below is a list of the top 10 HBCU dynasties since World War II. The early days gave us quite a few dynamite runs — Tuskegee won six titles in seven years in the 1920s, for instance, and Kentucky State won three straight in the 1930s — but to make an impossible task slightly less impossible, we’ll look only at what you might call college football’s semi-modern era.

And yeah, some of these title claims will overlap a bit.

The 1970s were boom times. De-segregation was in effect, but legendary coaches like Robinson, Tennessee State’s John Merritt, and SC State’s Willie Jeffries continued to reel in talent.

Despite Grambling peaking with Doug Williams and company, and despite Florida A&M winning the inaugural FCS title in 1978, SC State still managed to stand out, claiming the 1976 and 1977 black college titles. And after Jeffries left for Wichita State (he would return to Orangeburg in 1989), they won the 1981 and 1982 titles under Bill Davis.

Maybe the most impressive thing? The Bulldogs got better after losing pros like linebacker Harry Carson (a future NFL Hall of Famer), defensive back Donnie Shell, and defensive lineman Barney Chavous. These two-deeps were loaded.

We’re making an exception here. Yes, the Rattlers won only two HBCU titles in this span, while all the other teams here won at least three. But we’ll count the inaugural FCS championship, sealed with wins over Jackson State and UMass, as well.

I also just really wanted this team on the list so I could point out FAMU beat Howard Schnellenberger’s first Miami team in 1979.

”It’s a big relief,” said FAMU fullback Mike Solomon. “We heard up here during the week that the Miami players had made fun of us while watching our films. Some of them said we looked like high school players. I think today we proved that we’re the better team.” [...]

Rattler coach Rudy Hubbard had the look of a man who wanted to say “I told you so.”

”I don’t think I want to say that,” Hubbard said as fans mobbed him during a 50-yard line press conference that was delayed nearly an hour by his strange absence from the stadium immediately after the completion of the game.

”I don’t think saying something like that is important,” he said, tongue-in-cheek. “That could damage morale at the other schools ... but ... you saw it for yourself.”

Among the highlights in Samuel J. Freedman’s Breaking the Line, the story of Florida A&M’s and Grambling’s legendary 1967 (which culminated in a 28-25 Grambling win over FAMU in the Orange Blossom Classic) is Robinson’s fight to get NFL attention for his quarterback, James “Shack” Harris. But maybe the most enjoyable parts are when Freedman gets going about how much Robinson disliked Tennessee State’s Big John Merritt.

If Robinson was a teacher first, Merritt was a politician. In college football terms, that means he was one hell of a recruiter, even into the 1980s as attracting talent to HBCUs grew more difficult. The Tigers reached the FCS quarterfinals (losing to SC State) in 1981 and the semis in 1982, and Merritt retired after a 8-2-1 1983 (he would pass away just a couple of weeks later). TSU honored him by going 11-0 under William A. Thomas in 1984.

Morgan State has only one conference title since the 1970s, but the Bears were once the brightest HBCU light. They dominated the 1940s, claiming the 1943, 1944, 1946, and 1949 titles under Edward P. Hurt. The best was probably the last team, which outscored opponents by a 226-32 margin, allowing more than seven points just once.

The Bears also got to claim one of the first HBCU products to truly thrive in the pros: Ford, who graduated from MSU, enlisted in the Navy and played for Michigan after the war. The pride of Washington, DC, ended up on Paul Brown’s Cleveland Browns, won three NFL titles, and was named to the NFL’s all-decade team.

A&T’s run of FBS wins has really brought to focus the Aggies’ upside. Broadway, who also got to claim shares of HBCU titles with NC Central (2005 and 2006) and Grambling (2007), is one of the sport’s most underrated coaches, and he left Washington with a bounty, particularly in the trenches — defensive lineman Darryl Johnson, Jr., and offensive lineman Micah Shaw were FCS All-Americans in 2018.

If the Aggies win in 2019, after losing not only Shaw but also quarterback Lamar Raynard and running back Marquell Cartwright, then they might be Atlanta mainstays for years to come.

Merritt had already claimed three titles in the 1960s — at Jackson State in 1962 and at TSU in 1965-66 — but probably peaked in the early-1970s. From 1969-73, his Tigers went 48-3-1, winning the small-school showcase Grantland Rice Bowl in 1970 (over what would become UL Lafayette) and 1971 (over McNeese).

Robinson probably really hated Merritt in these years. From 1971-74, 19 Tennessee State players were selected in the NFL draft, including eight in the first two rounds. Primarily because of Merritt, TSU has produced 117 pros, more than current Power 5 programs like Iowa State and Vanderbilt.

While Robinson and Jake Gaither were still young, an old hand was ruling the roost from Baton Rouge. Ace Mumford had won the HBCU title at Texas College in 1935. He’d coached Southern to a HBCU basketball title in 1941, then got rolling on the gridiron in the late-1940s.

In this run, Southern demolished opponents; they allowed a total of 26 points in 11 games in 1950. These days of HBCU football were particularly defined by line play and the “three yards and a cloud of dust” mantra, and Southern didn’t even allow clouds of dust.

Southern’s stadium is named after him, but that almost goes without saying. If you want to know how respected Mumford was, look at the list of pall bearers at his funeral in 1962: Robinson, Gaither, Merritt, and pretty much every other HBCU coach of the era.

If Broadway is one of the most underrated coaches of the 2000s and 2010s, Billy Joe takes that honor from the 1980s and 1990s.

Before he nearly built Florida A&M into an FBS-caliber program at the turn of the century, he created a powerhouse out of almost nothing in Ohio. At Central State, the Villanova grad and former AFL fullback went 103-17-2 from 1983-92, making some noise in the D2 playoffs, then winning two NAIA national titles.

Joe was an innovator on offense, airing out in a way that few could (he was the originator of the Gulf Coast Offense), but his teams were dominant in the trenches. It was a downright unfair combination. (Honestly, it’s unfair to think of All-Pros Williams and Douglas taking on NAIA opposition.)

Despite lower-level stature, the Marauders earned their HBCU titles, including wins against Division I teams. They beat Morgan State and Tennessee State by a combined 98-27 in 1990, Alabama A&M and Howard by 80-29 in 1991, Alabama State and Morgan State by 85-42 in 1992, etc.

Robinson coached at Grambling for more than 50 years and claimed titles in five different decades. This might have been his best run; it was definitely his most important.

Because of segregation, HBCU programs had minimal scheduling opportunities before the 1970s, which meant that probably the most talented HBCU teams ever — those under Robinson, Gaither, Merritt, etc., in the 1960s and early-1970s — didn’t get to compare themselves to the rest of college football until their members reached the pros.

Tennessee State fared pretty well in a series of Grantland Rice Bowls during that period, but Grambling was the most aggressive at taking shots against what would become FBS-level competition. The Tigers went a combined 5-0 against Hawaii and Oregon State in the 1970s and 1980s, split a couple of games with Temple, and nearly beat a peaking SMU in 1983.

They also dominated at the HBCU level, claiming national titles in 1972, 1974, 1975, and 1977. 1980, too. And with alumni like receiver Charlie Joiner already in the Pro Bowl, Robinson produced constant future pros, with 13 Grambling products selected in the first three rounds between 1971-78.

Though Gaither’s and Robinson’s peaks came a mere decade apart, Gaither’s came in almost a completely different era. At the turn of the 1960s, Florida A&M was playing only games against fellow HBCU competition. But they get the No. 1 spot on this list because of sheer dominance.

I mean, dominance. In 1957, the Rattlers beat Southern and NC A&T by a combined 74-12 on their way to a 9-0 record. In 1959, only Southern stayed within three touchdowns. They outscored 10 opponents by a combined 506-33 in 1961. They got more dominant with each title run.

From 1957-62, FAMU beat rival Bethune-Cookman four times by a combined 367-18. That includes a 97-0 pasting in 1960.

And after a rare loss, they always got their revenge. They lost to Southern and Prairie View A&M in 1958 and beat them by a combined 49-21 in 1959. They lost again to Southern in 1960 and won 46-0 in 1961. They lost the last game of 1962 to Jackson State and had to wait 16 years for revenge. They got it in the 1978 FCS semifinals.

We understand now that the talent in the HBCU ranks was increasing in this period. And FAMU was still utterly untouchable. Gaither couldn’t top Robinson in longevity — he retired in 1969 after only 25 years in charge — but not even Robinson had a stretch of quite this level either.