The Cricket Celebration Bowl is giving HBCU football fans a new way to track the race to Atlanta. The game’s organizers have released the inaugural Toyota Championship Projection, a weekly model that estimates each MEAC and SWAC team’s odds of earning a spot in the HBCU national championship game.
Executive Director of the Toyota Celebration Bowl, John T. Grant, spoke about the Championship Projections.
“The conversations around who is playing the best football, who has the toughest road and what the numbers are really telling us have been happening behind the scenes for years. This projection model tool helps bring those conversations to the public. The tool gives fans, media and the HBCU football community more context around the championship races, the teams’ paths and how the numbers are changing from week to week. It does not replace what happens on the field, and it is not meant to tell us who will win. It is a tool to help us better understand the road to Atlanta and create more informed conversation around the Celebration Bowl.”
The statistical model weighs a team’s overall strength, strength of schedule, scoring efficiency, conference standing, remaining games and game locations, then plays out the rest of the conference season 10,000 times. A team’s percentage reflects how often it reaches the Celebration Bowl across those simulations.
The first numbers show Morgan State as the clear MEAC favorite, with a 63.4% chance of reaching Atlanta. In the SWAC, Jackson State leads the East Division at 49.5% and is the most likely overall champion at 40.3%, followed by Alabama A&M at 29.9%. Grambling State paces the more open West Division at 41.6%. The projection will be updated each week as results come in, ahead of the Dec. 12 game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Overall projections for both the MEAC and SWAC are below, with a more detailed breakdown on the Celebration Bowl website.
Overall MEAC Projections
| Rank | Team | Championship Projection |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Morgan State | 63.4% |
| 2 | South Carolina State | 19.7% |
| 3 | Delaware State | 7.3% |
| T-4 | Howard | 4.5% |
| T-4 | Norfolk State | 4.5% |
| 6 | North Carolina Central | 0.7% |
Overall SWAC Projections
| Rank | Team | Championship Projection |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jackson State | 40.3% |
| 2 | Alabama A&M | 29.9% |
| 3 | Grambling State | 10.2% |
| 4 | Bethune-Cookman | 6.0% |
| 5 | Prairie View A&M | 5.2% |
| 6 | Alabama State | 2.7% |
| 7 | Southern | 2.1% |
| 8 | Alcorn State | 1.8% |
| 9 | Arkansas-Pine Bluff | 1.7% |
| 10 | Mississippi Valley State | 0.12% |
| 11 | Texas Southern | <0.01% |
| — | Florida A&M | 0.0% — Ineligible |