SOUTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY HEAD COACH CHENNIS BERRY HOISTS THE CELEBRATION BOWL TROPHY, DEC. 13, 2025. (PHOTOS BY MIKE PATTON)
ATLANTA, GA.—“I think about from whence we came.”
That was just one of the phrases used by South Carolina State University’s head football coach, Chennis Berry, moments after his team did what few people thought they could accomplish in 2025 —win an HBCU national championship.
Berry brought out all the phrases, words mixed together so eloquently that Nas or Rakim may have been impressed.
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow’s a mystery, today’s a gift, that’s why they call it the present,” Berry said. “Just win today, and that’s all we talk about in our program.”
SOUTH CAROLINA STATE IS LOCATED IN ORANGEBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA.
South Carolina State, on this 55-degree day in Atlanta, under the massive Mercedes-Benz Stadium dome, showed which team was the most determined of all from the two all-Black college Division I conferences, the MEAC and SWAC. South Carolina State started the season 2-3, but then reeled off eight wins in a row to win it all, to reach the top.
It took not one, not two, not even three, but four overtimes to do it. But in the end, in front of 26,703 fans in the stadium, and up to three million viewers on ABC, the two-point conversion from South Carolina State quarterback Ryan Stubblefield to Jordan Smith was the difference in the game. When it was opponent Prairie View A&M’s turn to tie the game in the fourth OT, South Carolina State batted the ball down for the HBCU national championship win.
The final score in Atlanta, on this 13th day of December, 2025—40-38, South Carolina State.
“I just know the journey that we had to go through to get here today,” Berry said after the game. “A lot of people in this room probably didn’t believe in us. You guys may have said you picked us to win this year but you really didn’t, because we returned one starter on offense and two on defense, so nobody really thought we would be sitting here right now.”
NIGEL JOHNSON ATTEMPTS TO CATCH A PASS FOR S.C. STATE. THE BULLDOGS WON, 40-38.
Add to the fact that one year prior, SCSU played in the HBCU national championship game, better known as the Celebration Bowl, but lost handily to Jackson State out of the SWAC, 28-7. Berry coached in that game, concluding his first season as head coach for SCSU.
Let’s not forget that in this, the 2025 Celebration Bowl, Prairie View A&M, located about 40 minutes from Houston, Tex., jumped out to a 21-0 lead, much to the delight of their purple-shirt-wearing fans.
At halftime, 21-0 was the score, and the thousands who came to Atlanta from Orangeburg, South Carolina, to cheer on the Bulldogs out of the MEAC had nothing to cheer about except their marching band.
The second half was a different story. SCSU came out and scored three touchdowns in the third quarter to tie it at 21. The teams then went back and forth, leaving the score 35-35 at the end of four quarters. Then came the unbelievable overtimes.
There’s a lot of pride in HBCU football. And these days, a national champion is crowned thanks to the Celebration Bowl, which has been held in Atlanta every year since the first Celebration Bowl in 2015 and pits the champions of the MEAC and SWAC against each other for the title. North Carolina A&T out of the MEAC won the first iteration and four of the first five Celebration Bowls. No bowl game was held in 2020 due to COVID, but it returned in 2021 just in time to see South Carolina State defeat the Deion Sanders-coached Jackson State Tigers, 31-10. North Carolina Central defeated Jackson State in the 2022 game. In 2023, Florida A&M outlasted Howard University, 30-26. And South Carolina State knows all too well what happened in the 2024 game when they fell to Jackson State.
But in 2025, oh, how sweet it is. South Carolina State University, HBCU national champions. Just that phrase “brings joy to my heart,” Berry said.
He added: “I know this is what God had for us. When God is for you, nobody can be against you.”
