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Grind City Football: Celebration Bowl pits top-ranked North Carolina A&T and No. 2 Grambling for HBCU national title

MEMPHIS – North Carolina A&T and Grambling were on a high-stakes HBCU collision course all season.

Unlike the FBS College Football Playoffs, the nation won’t have to wait long at all for the showdown between the top two teams in the Historically Black Colleges and University ranks.

The highly anticipated clash between No.1-ranked N.C. A&T and No. 2 Grambling was officially set when the Tigers beat Alcorn State last weekend in Houston to win their second straight SWAC championship. Grambling (11-1) now gets to defend its national black college championship Dec. 16 when it returns to Atlanta to face N.C. A&T (11-0) in the ESPN-run Celebration Bowl at the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

By game time, the Aggies will have been idle for a month since they defeated rival North Carolina Central on Nov. 18 to clinch the MEAC title and the first 11-0 season in conference history.

The matchup features the two most dominant teams in HBCU football, with the Aggies and Tigers securing the top two spots in the BOXTOROW Coaches Poll since Week 5 of the season. N.C. A&T has won nine of its 11 games by double figures and has set multiple school records this season under coach Rod Broadway, who spent four seasons as Grambling’s coach before taking over the Aggies in 2011.

Grambling and coach Broderick Fobbs (center) will try to defend their HBCU national championship when they return to Atlanta to face unbeaten and No. 1-ranked North Carolina A&T in the Dec. 16 Celebration Bowl. Photo Credit: Celebration Bowl/ESPN

Current Grambling coach Broderick Fobbs has not lost a conference game since 2015, and the Tigers’ 23-2 record the past two seasons represents the best two-year mark in the history of the storied program established by iconic coach Eddie Robinson. Fobbs, who was a captain and fullback on Robinson’s last winning teams at Grambling in the mid-1990s, has won three SWAC West division crowns, two conference titles and a black college national championship in his four seasons as the Tigers’ coach.

“When you go through what we’ve been through in the last couple of years, it helps you admire … Michael Jordan and the (Chicago) Bulls, Tennessee with Pat Summit,” Fobbs told ESPN’s The Undefeated after Saturday’s SWAC title game in Houston. “It really helps you understand the mindset when you are flirting with greatness. It is very difficult, but it is also a huge sacrifice. Not too many people want to sacrifice what we’ve sacrificed in order to be where we are.”

Grambling enters the Celebration Bowl riding an 11-game winning streak, having run the table since a 43-14 road loss in the season opener against FBS opponent Tulane. The Aggies, however, boast an unblemished record on the season that includes a 35-31 win at FBS opponent Charlotte in September.

Next weekend’s bowl game is also highlighted by a quarterback matchup featuring two of the four national finalists for the 2017 Deacon Jones Award as Black College Football Player of the Year.

Grambling senior quarterback Devante Kincade, a two-year starter who spent his first two seasons at Ole Miss, has passed for 2,680 yards, 21 touchdowns and just three interceptions in 11 games this season. Kincade was named SWAC Offensive Player of the Year and Offensive MVP of the conference title game. N.C. A&T junior Lamar Raynard passed for 2,707 yards, 26 touchdowns and only five picks in 11 games. One of 12 Aggies on the All-MEAC first team, Raynard set school records for single-season completions, touchdown passes, touchdowns responsible for and passing yards.

“That’s half the (first team), isn’t it?” Broadway rhetorically asked regarding the Aggies’ prolific All-MEAC recognition this season. “I think it is very well deserved. Record-wise, we’re the best team in the league. Record-wise, we’re the best team in the history of the university, so I think it’s only fitting that we have a large number of guys on the (All-MEAC) team.”

2017 BOXTOROW FCS Final HBCU Regular Season Coaches Poll

(Records through December 2, 2017)

Others receiving votes: Alabama State (5-6) 1.

Note: (1st place votes in parentheses)

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