Baton Rouge, LouisianaSouthern Jaguars

Southern University — founded in 1880 in New Orleans, the flagship of the nation's only HBCU system — has played SWAC football since the conference's founding in 1934, and its roll call of legends is as deep as any in Black college football. The great A.W. Mumford coached from 1936 to 1961; his undefeated 1948 team beat San Francisco State 30-0 in the Fish Bowl, a landmark interracial postseason game that announced Black college football's quality to the nation. The stadium that bears Mumford's name has hosted generations of Jaguar football since.

The NFL pipeline from Baton Rouge is Hall of Fame caliber. Mel Blount — the Steelers' shutdown corner, 1975 NFL Defensive Player of the Year, and the reason the league changed its pass-coverage rules — starred at Southern in the late 1960s. Aeneas Williams followed two decades later on his way to Canton, and Harold Carmichael, the 6-foot-8 Eagles receiving great, walked on at Southern after playing high school quarterback. Isiah Robertson, Rich "Tombstone" Jackson, Rufus Porter and Ken Ellis round out a tradition the school formally honored as its eight Football Legends.

Southern's culture is its own spectacle. The Human Jukebox marching band is one of the most famous in America, and the Bayou Classic against Grambling — played every Thanksgiving weekend in New Orleans — is the crown jewel of the HBCU football calendar, now in its sixth decade. Pete Richardson's long tenure (1993–2009) brought sustained success, and the Jaguars reached the SWAC championship game as recently as 2024. The Faulk era is the program's boldest bet yet: a Hall of Famer with no head-coaching experience, handed the keys to a sleeping giant.