CFB Most Influential Programs
#12 Florida A&M Rattlers
School: Florida A&M Rattlers
First Game: 1907
Winning Percentage: .633
Appearances in AP/Rank: N/A
Average AP Ranking: N/A
National Titles: 16 Black National Titles, 1 Division 1-AA Title, AP Small College National Champion 1962 (not claimed by university).
Claim to Fame: Too many to mention, but FAMU was the first Division 1 school from the state of Florida to claim a football national championship.
Why I have them in my Collection: This can be said for many colleges, especially in the south when it comes to their HBCUs, but if it weren’t for FAMU and their astronomical success in the sunshine state, powers like Miami and FSU would not have been able to make such meteoric rises so quickly. If there is a godfather of Florida college football, it is decidedly FAMU.
Under legendary coach Jake Gaither, FAMU won 8 black national championships between 1950 and 1962. They also boast over 60 players to have reached the NFL. During the time when HBCU football had the highest concentration of talent, FAMU, Grambling, and Tennessee State were the most consistent at the top vying for supremacy.
FAMU is also the only HBCU to win a NCAA Division 1-AA (FCS) football national championship. They beat UMASS 35-28 in 1978 to achieve this feat.
In a game conveniently not covered in any of The U documentaries, Florida A&M actually beat Howard Schellenberger’s Miami 16-13 in 1979 coming off of FAMU’s 1-AA national championship. What’s even crazier, is the fact that they did this while playing at Florida State’s Doak Campbell Stadium Field. While a wonderful achievement for FAMU and HBCU football on the whole, beating Miami in FSU’s stadium was also likely the result that set in motion the inevitable talent drain that would come in the decades to follow.
Florida State just had to look across the proverbial street to see how to build a national powerhouse, and Miami witnessed it firsthand on the field. Both schools would hire coaches off of FAMU’s staff in the future, which also helped them tap into the high school pipelines that FAMU had built up over the decades.
We know what the results have been since then.
But FAMU has not backed down from being a prominent program in college football. While the success has not been consistent as of late, the team still has managed to win black national championships, had a little success in the 1-AA playoffs in the late 90s, and recently won the Celebration Bowl in 2023. They even had a brief stint trying to go FBS independent in the early 2000s but that obviously did not come to fruition. Unless you live under a rock or just don’t want to acknowledge actual history, you can’t ignore what FAMU means to the sport of college football in terms of influence beyond their own school and subdivision.
There is no Miami or FSU surge without the groundwork laid by FAMU in prior decades when black athletes couldn’t go to FSU or Miami because…segregation. I may even have the Rattlers ranked too low on this list, but the rest of it is pretty stacked.
Oh. And their marching band, the Marching 100 is pretty darn good too. College marching bands have also copied them as well.
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