(Video Provided by ESPN)


The first intercollegiate football contest between Black colleges took place on December 27, 1892. Biddle College, now Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., and Livingstone College in Salisbury, N.C., played against one another on Livingstone’s snowy front lawn and gave way to a bowl game that celebrates HBCU football’s excellence.

According to the college newspaper’s 1930 edition, team members purchased a regulations football and uniforms, and the players equipped their street shoes with cleats, taking them off after practice. The young women of the school’s industrial department made the players’ uniform.

The teams played two 45-minute halves with Trent scoring Livingstone’s only touchdown on a fumble recovery. Biddle argued that the fumble was recovered out of bounds as the snow had covered the field’s markings. The official ruled in Biddle’s favor, allowing them to keep the 5-0 lead and giving them the victory.

In 1956, an athletic marker was erected at Livingstone in honor of the historic game.