Talk:Black college football national championship

Do these polling organizations still run top 25 polls and crown Black National Champions? I did some hunting around and all I could find of significance was the HBCU sports blog. Based off of what I found there it seems the answer is yes, but I think there should be something more definitive than that. Jsonitsac (talk) 03:06, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Celebration Bowl
To My understanding, that the Celebration bowl will not crown the HBCU National Champion unless the consensus #1 & #2 are participating in the game. So i don't see how the Celebration Bowl is to be included at a selector. --Educatedblkman1914 (talk) 22:58, 24 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Valid concern. This issue was clarified, with multiple reference citations, in the Championship bowl games section of this article. --Theduder3210 (talk) 16:10, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

1952 Texas Southern
, Found a newspaper article that says the 1952 Texas Southern team coached by Alexander Durley won a black national title after their Prairie View Bowl win on  New Year's Day 1953; see https://www.newspapers.com/clip/40071541/the_morning_call/. Thoughts? Jweiss11 (talk) 18:23, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I've come across many articles like this declaring one team or another as the BCFNC, often based on winning a post-season game. Don't think these one-off articles referring to a team as national champion represents a reliable source for a BCFNC claim.  Due to weak strength of schedule, the 1952 Texas Southern was ranked fifth by the the Pittsburgh Courier.  See here. Cbl62 (talk) 18:55, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Bear in mind, too, that among the post-season BC games, the Prairie View Bowl doesn't really seem to have standing as a national championship game. It was a game in which Prairie View played every year against a team of its choosing -- not based on rankings or conference championships. Prairie View in 1952 ranked ninth in the Dickinson ratings. Cbl62 (talk) 19:01, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I see what you're saying, this article only lists titles issued by unbiased third parties—not self-proclaimed champions nor those titles issued by classics that had direct ties with its participants and might be tainted. But while this is kind of a sore issue that brings up, it probably needs to be addressed further in the article to avoid confusion—technically, it actually is addressed in the article, but only for a single sentence based off of this column's [] observations. Basically, the Prairie View Bowl—and especially the Orange Blossom Classic—are known for having done this at times, even though each of those classics had permanent, designated hosts and were played after the BCFNCs were already issued by selectors, thus giving Prairie View A&M and Florida A&M second chances to win one if the selectors didn't already give them one. They also had nothing to lose by scheduling these classics every year, because even if they did fail to win the game, the selectors may have already named them champs before the classics were held (and certainly weren't going to retract their final rankings even after their top pick had lost in the postseason). In reality though, PVAMU and FAMU were probably not acting in that sinister of a manner; they likely just wanted to have another opportunity to play one more football game. Regardless, if someone has access to Texas and/or Florida newspapers from that era, it could be interesting to compile a list of additional BCFNC claims derived from those two classics.Theduder3210 (talk) 03:08, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Appreciate the thoughtful comments from you both. I edited the Alexander Durley article to remove the 1952 national title from the infobox and head coaching record table.  The prose still mentions a national championship.  We should think about how to address such "self-proclaimed champions" systemically.  Also,  do you have a Newspapers.com account? Jweiss11 (talk) 23:43, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I have access to the Tallahasse Democrat via Newspapers.com. I saw a number of instances where FAMU was declared national champion simply based on having won the Orange Blossom Classic. Cbl62 (talk) 00:09, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * , interestingly, apparently FAMU self-claimed the 2019 BCFNC just yesterday, according to this source.[] If schools are still doing this, then it probably should be addressed more in this article, although I agree that a self-claim certainly can't be elevated to the same weight as that of an independent third party selector., I do subscribe to multiple newspapers through Newspapers.com . But at this point I have been thinking of upgrading my account to Newspapers.com Publisher Extra, because it looks like I would get a better deal for the money. Theduder3210 (talk) 03:11, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Theduder3210, you should apply to get a free account at Newspapers.com! Jweiss11 (talk) 03:13, 7 December 2019 (UTC)