South Carolina State’s football team last took the field on Nov. 23 when they wrapped up their MEAC schedule with a 53-21 victory over Norfolk State.
The MEAC champions will face Jackson State, who defeated Southern 41-13 in the SWAC championship game last weekend.
A change in college football’s postseason schedule thanks to the expansion of the College Football Playoff will affect the Division I HBCU national championship game.
The annual Celebration Bowl has now been moved from the third Saturday to the second weekend in December. The title game between the SWAC and MEAC champions will be played at noon EST on Dec. 14 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta and will be televised on ABC.
That means there will be no break between the Jackson State conference title game and the Celebration Bowl.
Bulldogs head coach Channis Berry said during Sunday’s Celebration Bowl coaches conference that even though the MEAC is the smallest FCS conference in terms of teams, the competition keeps everyone sharp and a little loud.
“Retrenchment means nothing to me, man. We’re going to go 1-0 every day,” he said. But in this game, no one gives excuses or explanations. You have to line up and make sure your team is ready to go, but I don’t see it as an advantage or a disadvantage.”
Berry says the advantage of three weeks between games is not a factor as SCSU prepares for its second Celebration Bowl appearance in school history.
“I’m a firm believer in controlling the controllable, so my job is to play with the people we have on our schedule and get our football team going,” Berry said. “We played a really good schedule with some opponents. And our conference is a tough one for me, and you have the opportunity to see our conference this year; it’s very, very competitive, not only in our conference, but we play teams from out of conference.
Lack of rest between games long considered a disadvantage for the SWAC by league stakeholders, despite Florida A&M beating Howard in last season’s Celebration Bowl.
SWAC Commissioner Dr. Charles McLelland suggested the disparity in the schedule between the two FCS Black College conferences led to the MEAC’s bowl game advantage.
The MEAC, which does not have a conference championship game, holds a 6-2 advantage over the SWAC.
“Not winning the Celebration Bowl is a product of our regular season,” McClelland said of the 12-team league, where each team plays eight games (five division games, three non-division games). “There’s no week off, you can’t look ahead, you can’t find out who that MEAC winner is because you have to focus on next week, the conference championship game and then the Celebration Bowl.”
