HBCU football keeps running into the same expensive problem: the Money Game.
After Thursday night’s 77-7 blowout in Florida A&M’s loss to Miami, the conversation around these matchups only got louder. The check still matters.
So does the damage. And as HBCU teams head into another weekend of FBS opponents, the tension between revenue and embarrassment is once again front and center.
That’s the backdrop for Week 2, where three HBCU programs are trying to beat the odds rather than simply survive them. Prairie View A&M, Alabama State and Texas Southern all enter games that the numbers say will be steep climbs. But the numbers don’t tell the whole story, and neither do the point spreads.
Prairie View A&M is the clearest example. The Panthers are headed to Baylor, where the public line has them as 38.5-point underdogs, while the BC+ flat-FBS conversion comes in at 35.4.
Coach Tremaine Jackson, though, has made it clear he doesn’t want the game framed as a payday. He said on his podcast this week: “We’re not going to allow people to put us in a bubble…it’s a great challenge for us and we’re are going to win like as we walk into the stadium every week…I coach in Division I too.”
He also posted: “This isn’t about showing up for a check.It’s about showing up to compete.”
Alabama State is carrying a similar mindset into its trip to Troy. Hornets coach Eddie Robinson Jr. said at the SWAC Coaches Week 2 Press Conference, “We feel like we should be able to match up well and have the mindset of going down there to try to get a win and represent ourselves in the conference well.”
Alabama State enters Week 2 at 2-0 and is ranked fourth in the BC+ HBCU Division I rankings. The Hornets’ 22.5-point spread against Troy State is the smallest number any HBCU program will face in Week 2.
Texas Southern also lands in the group of teams facing a projected 26.5-point spread, another number that puts the spotlight on whether an HBCU can outperform expectations against a bigger-budget opponent.
The larger issue behind all of it is the one that keeps resurfacing every time these games turn ugly. HBCUs keep taking the money, but the scoreboard beatdowns come with a cost that goes beyond the final margin. The psychological toll on players, coaches, alums and fans is part of the conversation too, even if it’s not always addressed publicly after a national-stage loss.
The BC+ model and the betting market are looking at these games from different angles, but they’re asking the same basic question: how much separation is there between an HBCU and an FBS opponent? BC+ says Florida A&M was minus-43.8 entering its game with Miami, though that number wasn’t meant to predict a 43.8-point loss in that specific game.
It was a season-long measure against the schedule Florida A&M actually played, compared with a Top-5 FCS baseline. Miami then won by 70.
That same kind of comparison is driving the Week 2 discussion. The market consensus, averaged from VegasInsider, Sportsbook Review and Covers, is being measured against BC+’s flat-FBS projection.
In some games, the gap is small. In others, it’s wide.
Virginia’s 59-3 win over Norfolk State matched the expectation of a blowout, while Norfolk State’s 21-point loss to Old Dominion last week came in better than the 40.5-point spread and showed that HBCU teams can outperform the market.
Saturday’s slate figures to follow the familiar pattern. Both the market and BC+ agree Prairie View A&M is the strongest of the group, and both see Southern against Houston and Howard against Indiana as dangerous assignments. The math may not be the same number, but the message is similar: these are uphill battles.
Still, the point of the exercise is not just to count the margin. It’s to see where the public line and the model diverge, and whether an HBCU can land on the right side of that gap. For Prairie View A&M, Alabama State and Texas Southern, that’s the challenge hanging over Week 2.
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Arch Manning Just Gave Texas Fans A Bigger Reason To Dream
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Mensah remains the favorite at +550 after completing more than 90 percent of his passes with eight touchdowns and no interceptions, a rsum that has forced the rest of the country to chase. Wide receivers Jeremiah Smith and Malachi Toney are also sitting near the top of the odds list, while Sam Leavitt saw his stock dip after a rough Week 2, a reminder that the Heisman race can shift quickly before the season really settles in. [Read more 🡒]