By Mekhi Abbot,
Special to the AFRO
The Howard Bison are on their way to the Cricket Celebration Bowl after defeating the Morgan State Bears on Nov. 18 earning their second consecutive Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) championship. The Bison won the matchup with a final score of 14-7.
“Offensively, our keys to victory were that we wanted to start fast–play for 60 minutes– and just make plays. We did that,” said quarterback Quinton Williams. “We knew it was going to be a 60-minute fight.”
The team jumped out to an early lead against Morgan State and 14 points proved to be enough for Howard to leave the game victorious.
The Bison finished regular season play with a record of 6-5, their first winning season since 2017. They finished 4-1 in conference play for the second year in a row and went undefeated when playing on their home turf.
This year they won the conference outright. In 2022, however, the team received backlash after being named co-champions alongside the North Carolina Central University (NCCU) Eagles.
“That was our main goal throughout the offseason. We trained to go to the Celebration Bowl and actually win it. There was a lot of chatter this offseason about us not earning a ‘full ring’ last year and that really motivated us,” said Williams.
Both the NCCU Eagles and the Howard Bison finished with a 4-1 conference record in 2022, but when the two teams faced up last year, the Eagles dismantled the Bison with a 50-21 victory. The Bison flipped the script this year, as they dominated the visiting Eagles and sent them out of Greene Stadium with a 50-20 loss.
After the controversial crowning of two conference champions last season, the MEAC did away with co-champions. The conference voted that even if two teams finish with the same conference record, the winner of the MEAC will be decided by a tie-breaker.
This season proves to be a very historic one for the Bison. This is the first time in school history that the Bison finished two consecutive seasons claiming MEAC championship honors. It is the first time since 1993 that the Bison are outright MEAC champions, and this will be only the third time that the Bison are competing in postseason play in program history.
“We continue to make history. This year they decided that there are no ties… that rule comes about because Howard is the school that is officially tying [for a MEAC championship], alright fine. Make the rule. We [knew] we had to win out, and we did it,” said head coach Larry Scott.
The Celebration Bowl is an adored postseason bowl game birthed in 2015 and is heralded as the de facto Black College Football National Championship. The MEAC conference winner plays the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) victor. The game takes place in Atlanta every year, formerly in the Georgia Dome and now at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. It is currently the only bowl game contested by teams in the Football Championship Subdivision.
Howard’s SWAC opponent has yet to be determined as the SWAC Championship game has yet to be played. On Dec. 2, the Florida A&M Rattlers (10-1, 8-0 SWAC) and the Prairie View A&M Panthers (6-5, 6-2 SWAC) will face off to determine who will represent the SWAC in the Celebration Bowl. The MEAC currently holds a 6-1 record against SWAC opponents in the Cricket Celebration Bowl.
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