South Carolina State isn’t just putting together a dominant run by HBCU standards.
The Bulldogs are doing something that stands out across the entire FCS.
South Carolina State has won 12 consecutive games dating back to October 2025, a streak that includes a MEAC championship, a Celebration Bowl championship, and a road win over a ranked Furman team.
As of this week, only Montana State has a longer active winning streak among FCS programs. The Bobcats have won 18 straight. South Carolina State’s 12 straight wins are tied for the second-longest active streak in the subdivision.
That’s the context that makes what is happening in Orangeburg particularly noteworthy.
How SC State has done it
South Carolina State’s streak isn’t being built against only one level of competition.
- The Bulldogs have beaten fellow HBCUs.
- They’ve beaten teams from outside the HBCU landscape.
- They’ve won conference games.
- They’ve won a championship game.
- And they’ve won on the road against a ranked FCS opponent.
South Carolina State opened 2026 by winning its first four games — including a 31-13 victory over Florida A&M in the Orange Blossom Classic and a 20-17 road win over then No. 24 Furman.
Putting the streak next to the FCS elite
The comparison is revealing.
Montana State: 18 straight wins.
South Carolina State: 12 straight.
Idaho State: 7 straight.
Dayton, Illinois State, Lehigh, Stephen F. Austin and Tarleton State: Four straight entering Week 4.
Those numbers put South Carolina State in a very different conversation from simply being “the best HBCU team right now.”
And the Bulldogs aren’t hiding from the national rankings.
South Carolina State entered the Sept. 21 AFCA FCS Coaches Poll at No. 16, its highest ranking of the season to this point.
The historical HBCU company
Over roughly the past 15 years, several HBCU Division I programs have produced winning streaks that rival or exceed what South Carolina State is doing now.
North Carolina A&T — 15 games
The 2017-18 Aggies put together one of the most remarkable runs of the modern HBCU era.
A&T went 12-0 in 2017, becoming the first Division I HBCU to complete an undefeated season. The Aggies won the MEAC and Celebration Bowl that year.
They carried that momentum into 2018 before Morgan State ended a 15-game winning streak with a 16-13 upset. At the time, A&T’s streak was the longest active winning streak in FCS football.
South Carolina State — 21 MEAC games
Interestingly, the Bulldogs themselves have been here before.
In 2010, South Carolina State entered a game against Bethune-Cookman riding a 21-game MEAC winning streak. Bethune-Cookman won 14-0 to end it.
So the current 12-game run is not the longest streak in school history.
But it is beginning to resemble the kind of sustained dominance that has defined some of the best HBCU teams of the past generation.
Grambling — 16 straight at home
Grambling’s 2016-17 run provides another useful comparison.
The Tigers finished 2016 on an 11-game overall winning streak, winning the SWAC championship, Celebration Bowl and HBCU national championship.
Grambling then continued its dominance at Eddie G. Robinson Memorial Stadium, eventually putting together a 16-game home winning streak before Jackson State ended it in 2021.
That distinction matters: it was a home streak, not an overall winning streak.
Jackson State’s recent rise
Jackson State also produced one of the defining HBCU runs of the early 2020s.
Under Deion Sanders, the Tigers went 11-2 in 2021 and 11-1 in 2022, reaching the Celebration Bowl in consecutive seasons. In 2024, Jackson State entered the Celebration Bowl on a nine-game winning streak and finished the season 12-2 after defeating South Carolina State for its first Celebration Bowl championship.
The Tigers’ 2024 run illustrates an important distinction.
A team can have an extraordinary season without producing a 12-game overall streak.
South Carolina State is doing both across two seasons.
And then there’s Bethune-Cookman
Bethune-Cookman was another MEAC power during this period.
In 2013, the Wildcats were attempting to extend their FCS regular-season winning streak to 12 games, part of a run that helped establish Brian Jenkins’ program as one of the conference’s dominant teams.
That gives some historical perspective to what South Carolina State is doing now.
Why the streak matters
Twelve straight isn’t simply another good stretch.
It’s a number that has historically marked the territory occupied by some of the strongest HBCU programs in the subdivision.
But South Carolina State’s current run deserves to be placed in that conversation.
Because this isn’t merely 12 wins in a row.
It’s 12 wins in a row with a conference championship, a Celebration Bowl championship, a four-overtime comeback, multiple road victories, and a ranked FCS road win sitting inside the streak.
That’s the distinction.
The Bulldogs haven’t yet matched the longest winning streaks HBCU Division I football has produced over the past 15 years.
But they have reached the point where their current run belongs in the same historical discussion.
