A game that some predicted to be close was never in doubt as SWAC champion Jackson State handled MEAC winner South Carolina State 28-7 to win the 2024 edition of the Celebration Bowl and its first HBCU national championship since 1996.
The Tigers led wire-to-wire and never were seriously challenged in spite of having to go straight from the SWAC title game the previous week to Atlanta to play a South Carolina State team that had not played a game in over two weeks.
That level of dedication, preparedness, and desire to stay on top of one’s game comes from the top, so there is no surprise that this Jackson State team is molded by a program legend, current head coach T.C. Taylor.
Taylor, a highly regarded quarterback coming out of high school, accepted a switch to receiver his junior year at J-State. By his senior year of 2001, he was one of the top pass catchers in the country (84 receptions, 1,234 yards, and 11 touchdowns). He earned training camp deals with the New England Patriots and Detroit Lions before turning his attention to coaching.
Taylor worked his way up those ranks as well, serving as a quarterbacks and receivers coach and offensive coordinator at schools from Coahoma Community College in Mississippi to North Carolina Central before returning to Jackson State five years ago.
He served as a coordinator under John Hendrick and Deion Sanders before being named head coach in December 2022 following Sanders’ move to Colorado. Taylor set about building a roster ready to climb the Celebration Bowl mountain and represent a proud tradition of JSU football.
All T.C.’s Tigers have done in his first two seasons on the job is compile a 19-6 overall record, 13-3 in SWAC play, and topped the 2024 season off with a measure of revenge in dominating South Carolina State Saturday.
This was Taylor’s fourth Celebration Bowl appearance (he was the offensive coordinator in NCCU’s 10-9 loss to Grambling in 2016), and it turned out to be the charm as he and his players, who shared an unwavering belief in each other, shared in one of the great victories in JSU history.
“They believed in me,” Taylor said of his players. “I said we’re going to work our butts off because we were going to get to this moment.”
If you don’t believe in storybook endings, you may find it hard to believe that a proud son of an HBCU powerhouse returned home to lead his football team to the Promised Land.
But it actually happened.
And Taylor and the Jackson State football team wrote an ending to the 2024 HBCU football season that few will forget.
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