Howard University Bison Football

Washington's oldest Saturday

Howard University put out its first football team in 1893 and spent its opening two decades as an independent before joining the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1912, winning CIAA titles in 1912 and 1914. The Bison stayed in the CIAA until 1970 and have been in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference since 1971. Their NCAA classification tracked the sport's reorganisations: College Division through 1972, Division II from 1973 to 1977, and Division I-AA — now the Football Championship Subdivision — from 1978 onwards.

Home since 1926 has been William H. Greene Stadium, a 10,000-capacity ground on the north-west Washington campus rather than a municipal bowl across town. That matters more than it sounds, because a great deal of what Howard football has become in the 2020s involves leaving it. The all-time ledger reads 532 wins, 516 losses and 40 draws, a winning percentage of.507 across 133 seasons — a programme that has very rarely been bad for long and has almost never been dominant for long either.

The seasons on the board

Howard's claim to black college national championships runs 1920, 1923, 1925 and 1926, then stops for 67 years. Steve Wilson restarted it: his 1993 side took the MEAC and made the only FCS playoff appearance in programme history, losing in the first round to Marshall, and his 1996 team won a second black college title and the Heritage Bowl. That Heritage Bowl win remains the one victory in four bowl appearances, a 1–3 record. Two College Football Hall of Famers, Willie Jeffries and Doug Porter, played for the Bison before building reputations as head coaches elsewhere, and more than 20 Howard alumni have reached the NFL, among them Antoine Bethea and Marques Ogden.

The modern revival belongs to Larry Scott. In 2022 Howard went 5–6 overall but 4–1 in the MEAC and shared the conference title with North Carolina Central — a first since 1996 — on the back of a 31–0 win over Morehouse at MetLife Stadium and a 35–6 result against Morgan State, with a 50–21 defeat in Durham the blemish that handed NC Central the Celebration Bowl berth.

The following year they finished the job. A 6–5 record and another 4–1 conference mark gave Howard the MEAC outright in 2023, and the head-to-head win over NC Central sent them to Mercedes-Benz Stadium on 16 December. They led Florida A&M 14–0 in the first quarter on two early rushing scores, fell behind for the middle of the game, and went back in front 26–24 midway through the fourth when defensive back Carson Hinton returned an interception for a touchdown. Jeremy Moussa answered with a 38-yard throw to Jah'Marae Sheread and the Rattlers won 30–26. It is still the closest Howard has come to a black college national title in three decades.

A quarterback comes home

Scott left after six seasons and a 23–37 record to coach tight ends at Auburn, and Howard named Ted White as his replacement on 2 January 2026. White is the programme's own: as a Howard quarterback he set the career records for passing yards, completions, touchdowns and total offence, and was named both MEAC Player of the Year and Black College Football Player of the Year.

The coaching résumé he brought back covers nearly twenty years and most tiers of the sport. Quarterbacks and receivers at Texas Southern from 2006 to 2008, offensive coordinator at Southern in 2010, then six years at Howard from 2011 to 2016 as assistant head coach, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. After that, Arkansas–Pine Bluff from 2016 to 2018, Prairie View A&M in 2019, the DC Defenders in 2020, Maryland in 2021, the Houston Texans in 2022, quarterbacks at UCLA in 2024 and an offensive analyst post back at Maryland in 2025.

He hired Jimmie Johnson as offensive coordinator and kept Kyshoen Jarrett, who is in his second season running the defence. The continuity on that side of the ball has shown up in the results more than the new offence has.

Eight games in

The opener, on 29 August at Center Parc Stadium in Atlanta, went Howard's way: 31–24 against Alabama A&M at the Cricket MEAC/SWAC Challenge in front of 17,320. Then came a 28–21 home defeat to Richmond on 5 September before 3,671 at Greene, and two guarantee games that did what guarantee games do — 55–0 at fifth-ranked Indiana on 12 September in front of 54,376, and 58–7 at Rutgers on 25 September in front of 34,466.

The season turned at Audi Field on 3 October, where Howard beat Hampton 27–13 before a crowd of 15,389. A 24–20 loss at Penn on 10 October interrupted it; a 31–17 homecoming win over Division II Morehouse on 17 October, with 9,995 inside a 10,000-seat stadium, restarted it.

The 24 October trip to Hughes Stadium for Morgan State's Hall of Fame Game produced the result of Howard's year so far. Starting quarterback Ja'Shawn Scroggins was lost during the game and the Bison trailed 20–6 early in the fourth quarter. Backup Isaiah Freeman rushed for 42 yards and produced both offensive touchdowns — a two-yard run with 7:46 left, then a four-yard pass to Billy Roberson II with 3:09 left to tie it at 20. On Morgan State's first overtime possession, Ben Chandler IV intercepted Cameron Edge and returned it 87 yards to win the game 26–20. Howard managed only 246 total yards to Morgan State's 294 but committed no turnovers; Roberson ran for 76 yards.

"These guys never quit. I'm really proud of these guys," was White's summary afterwards. It was Howard's second consecutive overtime win over the Bears, following a 33–27 result in Washington the previous season. It left the Bison 4–4 overall, 1–0 in the MEAC and ninth in the Black College Football Poll, with Morgan State 5–3 and 0–1.

The fixture list is the business plan

Six of Howard's twelve 2026 fixtures are away from Greene Stadium, and the pattern is deliberate. The opener was a televised neutral-site event in Atlanta. The Hampton game — the Battle of the Real HU, running since 1908 and built on the argument over which institution owns the initials — moved to Audi Field, the 20,000-seat soccer ground on the Washington waterfront, where it was first staged as the Truth and Service Classic. Hampton still leads that series 58–44–1. The two FBS trips to Bloomington and Piscataway paid for a good deal of the rest.

The counterweight was homecoming. Howard brought the 17 October game back on campus against Morehouse, the first homecoming meeting between them since 18 October 1997, after years of shipping the fixture to neutral sites including RFK Stadium and MetLife. The rivalry dates to 1923 and Howard leads it 25–10–2. White framed the decision in terms of what the venue does for the squad: playing Morehouse on the homecoming stage in front of alumni and students, he said, is the kind of environment that builds culture and pride.

What a Saturday looks like now

The football is only part of the programme. The Showtime Marching Band fields the Dazzlin' Diamonds baton twirlers, the Flashy Flags, the Ooh La La! Dancers and the Thunder Machine percussion section, and halftime belongs to them rather than to any analysis of the first two quarters. Homecoming week in 2026 ran 13–18 October under the theme "Wildest Dreams", with Yardfest staged on the Yard on both the Friday and the Saturday — the second run going from noon straight up to the 3.30pm kick-off — and the Greek step show at Burr Gymnasium at 8pm on the Friday featuring the Divine Nine organisations, five of which were founded at Howard.

Pricing reflects the demand that creates. Homecoming tickets ran from $75 for seniors to $135, with general admission at $100 to $135 — steep for FCS football, and the stadium still finished 5 seats short of capacity. The broadcast picture has firmed up too: ESPNU and ESPN+ carry the November fixtures, with the Hampton game going out on HBCU GO and in syndication across major US markets.

Four dates left

Everything in front of Howard is conference football. The Bison travel to O'Kelly–Riddick Stadium in Durham for North Carolina Central on 31 October at 2pm on ESPN+ — the opponent that has decided their last two title races. South Carolina State comes to Greene Stadium on 5 November at 7.30pm on ESPNU, a Thursday night slot moved up from the originally scheduled 7 November and badged as Military Appreciation Day. Delaware State visits on 14 November at 1pm for senior day, and the regular season closes at Norfolk State's William "Dick" Price Stadium on 21 November at noon.

At 1–0 in the MEAC with four conference games to play, the Celebration Bowl berth on 12 December at Mercedes-Benz Stadium is still live, which is not where a 0–4 stretch in September suggested this would be. Whether a first-year head coach with a backup quarterback can hold that position for a month is the only question the remaining fixtures are asking.