That Time FAMU Nearly Made It In College Football's Top Level, But The Timing Was Off

[superman7515]

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/5/4/11429522/florida-am-football-history-billy-joe-jake-gaither


You don't really know what the high point was until after the fact. You don't really know where the peak was until you've begun to come down.

With 16 years of hindsight, we can pinpoint Florida A&M's modern peak. On December 11, 1999, the Rattlers led Jim Tressel's Youngstown State by 11 points with eight minutes to go in the Division I-AA (now FCS) semifinals. They had the ball at the Penguins' 4. In that moment, the future was green and orange.



Under Jake Gaither from the end of World War II until 1969, the Rattlers were one of the two anchors of Black college football alongside Eddie Robinson's Grambling. Nine years after Gaither's retirement, under former Woody Hayes assistant Rudy Hubbard, they won the inaugural Division I-AA national title in 1978. They were storied and celebrated...

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From the same article:


Some key dates in FAMU history

1945: FAMU hires Gaither. The Rattlers win 22 SIAC titles in 25 years with Gaither and won six Black College National Championships. They lose zero or one games 15 times. He retires after an 8-1 1969. His final win was over Eddie Robinson and Grambling in the 1969 Orange Blossom Classic, an annual battle between FAMU and another top HBCU team. Gaither wins 12 of those.

1974: FAMU hires Hubbard. The Rattlers had gone 21-22 after Gaither retired, but Hubbard, a 28-year-old former Ohio State running back, gets them rolling again.

1978: FAMU wins the inaugural NCAA I-AA title in 1978, beating UMass in the finals, 35-28.

1979: FAMU beats Howard Schnellenberger's first Miami team, 16-13, in the Orange Bowl.

1996: In Billy Joe's third year, FAMU returns to the I-AA playoffs after a nearly two-decade absence. They will go to six straight, reaching the second round in 1998 and the semifinals in 1999.

2004: An ill-timed jump to FBS goes wrong. FAMU goes 3-8, 0-6 against FBS competition, and goes back to the MEAC after one year.

2010: The last time FAMU beat rival Bethune-Cookman. The Rattlers go on to a five-game losing streak to the Wildcats, whom they have historically dominated (45-19 since World War II).

2011: A hazing scandal engulfs the famed FAMU Marching 100 after drum major Robert Champion dies. The band is suspended until 2013.

2015: FAMU hires former James Madison head coach Alex Wood as its 18th head coach.

[clenz]

I don't know why no one has responded tho this. It's a pretty damn good read

[superman7515]

Doesn't fit the repetitive false narrative of Idaho being the first 1A/FBS school to voluntarily move back to 1AA/FCS.

More likely, it's because it's just a MEAC school, so no one really pays it much attention, but I agree, it's a fantastic read. My friend Mr. Hollins, in the article quite a bit, was the first guest on the AGS radio show.

[clenz]

I don't know why HBCU fans here get so touchy when it's pointed out the what makes HBCU football different is that the game is secondary to everything that happens. There are direct quotes in the article that back that thought up


"That's a beauty of the HBCU experience. The social aspect of our sports have always been a huge thing, especially in football. And as we came further into the 1980s and 1990s and 2000s, with the Bayou Classic [Southern-Grambling], the Magic City Classic [Alabama State-Alabama A&M] and others, those games haven't really lost their luster."

[clenz]

Maybe it's because we all know the rules for moving up now, and they may be in place because of FAMU but how in the hell did they get approval to skip the entire transition period? Would they have been successful if they had followed that?

[AshevilleApp2]

Good find Supe! I didn't know that FAMU had been 1-A for a while. I was at the 1999 playoff game in Boone. xsmhx They made our defense look sick, and that defense had held Georgia Southern to 16 points in the regular season.

[superman7515]

Maybe it's because we all know the rules for moving up now, and they may be in place because of FAMU but how in the hell did they get approval to skip the entire transition period? Would they have been successful if they had followed that?

They didn't skip it, you just didn't get as long to transition then. Now you get two years, with one generally coming at the FCS level and the second at the FBS level, and you usually know a full year ahead of time when your transition will start, so basically three years (think ODU trying to argue they should be eligible for CAA rules changes so they could win conference titles).

Back then, they applied and were accepted right away. So instead of a year to put things in place, and then a year of quasi-FCS where they ramp up scholarships and aren't eligible for the playoffs, then their first provisional FBS season, they had two months to prepare for a 1A Indy schedule after they no longer had any MEAC contracts (just the Florida Classic). Welcome to the big time boys.

[813Jag]

Good find Supe! I didn't know that FAMU had been 1-A for a while. I was at the 1999 playoff game in Boone. xsmhx They made our defense look sick, and that defense had held Georgia Southern to 16 points in the regular season.
They hung 65 on us that year and it felt like they could hit 100

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[clenz]

If FAMU had taken a longer transition what, realistically, would their ceiling have been as an FBS program?

[superman7515]

If FAMU had taken a longer transition what, realistically, would their ceiling have been as an FBS program?

My personal opinion, which isn't worth much, is that if they had taken a longer transition period to get the finances in place, I think they would have been a Marshall-esque team. Their facilities needed major overhauls for the 1A (at the time) level. If they had secured the funds and moved to get that squared away, they could have sold the HBCU experience to recruits who want to be around more young people like themselves, they're in Florida with plenty of recruiting access to the south and the allure of major college football not too far from the beach, and they had ready-made (and realistic, unlike trying to beat FSU/UF/Miami every year) rivals in FIU & FAU to get them started, especially if they had gotten into the Sun Belt. They would have had more good than bad, low-level bowl experiences most years with the occasional mid-level bowl if everything lined up in the galaxy and a few rebuilding seasons if the wrong guy got hired, but usually a middle of the pack team that wasn't too high or too low and never a threat to bust into the big boys bowl games.

[BisonFan02]

If FAMU had taken a longer transition what, realistically, would their ceiling have been as an FBS program?

They are right now with less schollys...replace the "GoDaddy" Sunbelt/MAC bowl with the Celebration Bowl and you have it.

[dgtw]

I don't know why HBCU fans here get so touchy when it's pointed out the what makes HBCU football different is that the game is secondary to everything that happens. There are direct quotes in the article that back that thought up

I wonder if a Sun Belt schedule would draw the alums like the games against other HBCUs, especially the big rivalries.

[Lehigh Football Nation]

Finally got around to reading this. It appears to leave out an awful lot in regards to its I-A transition.

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/08/28/Collegefootball2003/Rattlers_begin_transi.shtml


In August, the NCAA denied their waivers, prompting coach Billy Joe to chastise that body and his administration for the rushed move to I-A that endangered the players' eligibility.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2004-10-30/sports/0410291018_1_famu-coach-rattlers-fau


It was June 2003 when FAMU announced it would apply to the NCAA to move up starting that fall. A TV deal had been signed that was supposed to bring in millions of dollars that would fund the cost of the move.

But problems popped up immediately. About a dozen players were transferring into FAMU, but since the Rattlers were now I-A, those players were required to sit out a year.

Most bailed out and went to other I-AA schools where they could play right away, and FAMU lost a lot of talent. The Rattlers also had to become an independent and leave the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.

To compete at the I-A level, FAMU needed a big upgrade of its athletic facilities and the ability to pay teams to play in Tallahassee, since as an independent it could not rely on conference games.

A year after deciding to make the move, its main proponent, then-President Fred Gainous, decided to abort. But it was too late for FAMU to get back into the MEAC.

Gainous has since been fired after FAMU came under state scrutiny for budget deficits.

FAMU was completely and utterly unprepared for the transition to I-A, didn't have a plan together to get TV rights, upgrade facilities or (crucially) get their academic compliance offices up to snuff, either. That was why they aborted, and is why the idiotic "conference invite to FBS" rule exists today.