Florida A&M, The First NCAA Football Champions & The Future of HBCU Football
“We felt like all along,” former Florida A&M coach Rudy Hubbard said to the Associated Press ahead of the first-ever NCAA Div. I-AA National Championship Game in December 1978, “We had a first-class program and Saturday we will get a chance to show the nation.”
The Rattlers accomplished just that, beating Massachusetts to win the title, 35-28.
Claiming the first official NCAA Div. I football championship is a crowning achievement in Hubbard’s illustrious career, which is being enshrined as part of the 2021 College Football Hall of Fame class. But it’s only one of the many milestones Hubbard reached while at Florida A&M.
He bookended the national championship with noteworthy accomplishments — like in 1979, beating Miami. Yes, THAT Miami, in legendary coach Howard Schnellenberger’s first season with the Hurricanes.
In 1977, the year before the Rattlers’ run to the national title, Hubbard coached the only undefeated in all of college football. In Matt Fortuna’s excellent profile of Hubbard’s upcoming Hall of Fame induction, the coach said the perfect ‘77 team foreshadowed the excellent of ‘78.
The unbeaten 1977 Rattlers also helped bring attention to both Florida A&M, and HBCU football as a whole. Sports Illustrated featured the program in the Oct. 9, 1978 edition, just as the Rattlers extended the nation’s longest winning streak to 15 games.
Douglas S. Looney poses the question:
[H]ow could it be that the Florida A&M Rattlers—the Fearless Fang Gang as they call themselves—have the nation's longest winning streak but so few people are aware of it? As a for instance, last Saturday night in Tallahassee the Top 10-ranked Florida State Seminoles played Houston (and were upset 27-21) before a frenzied mob of 41,142.
Meanwhile, a mile away, before a crowd of 11,882, the Rattlers beat Howard University 28-7 for their 15th straight win. All of which tends to make A&M, which was also the only undefeated NCAA football team in 1977, a bit paranoid. University President Walter L. Smith suspects that his school is overlooked because it is predominantly black.
Echoes Quarterback Albert Chester, "It's like the NCAA is a big bus and we're always in the back seats. Nothing is worse than being ignored." Hubbard's defensive coordinator, Fred Goldsmith, agrees. "We've experienced a lot of success," he says, "and little fanfare."
From the perspective of an outsider, HBCU football has long felt like it exists in its own silo in terms of how mainstream outlets cover it. Something completely out-of-the-ordinary is often all that attracts widespread attention — like Steve McNair’s otherworldly play for Alcorn State in 1994…
…or Prairie View A&M’s 80-game losing streak that spanned most of the ‘90s.
Simply excelling isn’t sufficient. Consider the 2017 North Carolina A&T Aggies. On the 40-year anniversary of Florida A&M finishing as the only undefeated team in the NCAA, A&T joined UCF as the only unbeatens in Div. I.
The Aggies featured NFL-caliber talent, including third-round draft pick Brandon Parker. But North Carolina A&T flew low on the national radar.
To that end, I understand and even appreciate, to some degree, Jackson State and Tennessee State hiring unproven but recognizable head coaches Deion Sanders and Eddie George. Both attracted a spotlight, and in Jackson State’s case with Sanders, it’s produced wins.
Sanders missed a chunk of this season, which will likely culminate in the Tigers winning the SWAC and Black National Championships, but the quality of staff he assembled and high-caliber talent Jackson State’s recruited are to Prime Time’s credit.
But in this, the year the College Football Hall of Fame finally inducts Rudy Hubbard, there’s something I find poetic about the success of present-day Florida A&M.
The Rattlers take one of the nation’s best defenses, including my nominee for the Buck Buchanan Award, linebacker Isaiah Land, to Southeastern Louisiana for a 1st Round Playoff game this Saturday.
It’s Florida A&M’s first appearance in the FCS Playoffs in 20 years, and the first trip for a SWAC program since 19971.
This Florida A&M shares qualities with the ‘78 team — such as foreshadowing its success the season prior. In 2019, the last year the program competed, the Rattlers won the Black National Championship.
Current coach Willie Simmons also shares similarities with Hubbard from his days in the late ‘70s. Both are products of national powerhouses — Simmons of Clemson2 and Hubbard of Ohio State. Simmons is a young head coach in his 30s, like Hubbard when he won the NCAA Championship.
If Simmons can lead the Rattlers to a win in the Playoffs, he should command national attention on the program akin to Hubbard four decades ago. No HBCU team has won in the Playoffs since Florida A&M reached the semifinals in 1999, and should it happen, it would come against the reigning Walter Payton Award winner and former SEC quarterback Cole Kelley.
No matter if the Rattlers beat SELA, there’s something special brewing in the SWAC and with HBCU football that deserves greater respect from the college football community at large.
Just look at the packed stadium Jackson State welcomed for its regular-season finale.
Like Rudy Hubbard said to the AP in 1978, these are first class programs getting their opportunities now to show the nation.
Florida A&M was a member of the MEAC when it last played in the Div. I-AA/FCS Playoffs.
Simmons played three seasons at Clemson under Tommy Bowden and earned his degree from the school. He spent his final collegiate season at The Citadel, playing for journeyman Power Five assistant Ellis Johnson.