College football is just in its third week. There’s still roughly three months of football to be played on the various teams’ regular season schedules. So much can happen between now and the end of November to alter the landscape of conference championships and postseason aspirations.
South Carolina State, the defending HBCU national champion, has begun the 2026 campaign standing on business in its quest for a repeat. The Bulldogs opened Aug. 29 with an 87-0 rout of Division II Savannah State on the school’s Hall of Fame and Faculty & Staff Appreciation night at Willie Jeffries Field at Oliver C. Dawson Stadium in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
Facing a much tougher opponent than the Division II Savannah State Tigers of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC), SC State traveled to Miami Gardens, Florida, to challenge the Division I Florida A&M Rattlers of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC). Although the final score of 31-13 wasn’t as lopsided as it was the previous week, the Bulldogs were even more impressive.
Anchored by a stingy defense that incomprehensibly held the Rattlers to minus one total net yards rushing on 30 attempts, the Bulldogs dictated the terms in the Orange Blossom Classic to move to 2-0 ahead of Saturday’s matchup at home against the Virginia State Trojans.
The Rattlers gained 60 yards on the ground but the Bulldogs turned them back for 61 yards lost on 15 tackles and had five sacks. On the other side of the ball for South Carolina State, running back Mason Pickett-Hicks amassed 210 yards rushing on 17 carries with two touchdowns and was named the game’s MVP.
The Rattlers, who are 1-1 after an opening game win (20-7) over Albany State, will play the University of Miami Hurricanes tonight. Known as The U, Miami lost to Indiana in last year’s BCS National Championship Game and is one of the best teams in the country again this season with a ranking of No. 7.
According to The Tallahassee Democrat, Miami is paying Florida A&M $720,000 — plus another $40,000 if the Marching 100 makes the trip — for what has long been called a “money game,” the arrangement in which major programs pay lower-tier Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools, formerly Division I-A, and Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) programs, the erstwhile Division I-AA, anywhere from several hundred thousand dollars to north of $1 million to take butt whoppings.
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