The 1962 Jackson State Tigers football team was an

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

team that represented Jackson State College for Negroes—now known as

Jackson State University Jackson State University (Jackson State or JSU) is a Public university, public Historically Black colleges and universities, historically black research university in Jackson, Mississippi. It is a member of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and ...

as a member of the

Southwestern Athletic Conference The Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, which is made up of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the Southern United St ...

(SWAC) during the

1962 NCAA College Division football season The 1962 NCAA College Division football season was the seventh season of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the NCAA College Division, College Division level. In the final As ...

. In their 11th season under head coach John Merritt, the Tigers compiled an overall record of 10–1 record with a mark of 6–1 against conference opponents, won the SWAC title, defeated Florida A&M in the

Orange Blossom Classic The Orange Blossom Classic is an American annual college football game first held from 1933 to 1978 and again since 2021. Starting back up in 2021 the game has been played on Labor Day weekend. History In its first incarnation, the Classic featu ...

, and outscored all opponents by a total of 411 to 101. The Tigers were recognized by the ''

Pittsburgh Courier The ''Pittsburgh Courier'' was an African American weekly newspaper published in Pittsburgh from 1907 until October 22, 1966. By the 1930s, the ''Courier'' was one of the leading black newspapers in the United States. It was acquired in 1965 by ...

'' as the 1962 black college national champion. Another source selected Florida A&M as the national champion despite Jackson State's 22–6 victory over Florida A&M in the Orange Blossom Classic. Key players for Jackson State included quarterback Roy Curry and end Willie Richardson. Richardson was later inducted into the

College Football Hall of Fame The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive Tourist attraction, attraction devoted to college football, college American football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players ...

. At the start of the fall 1962 semester,

James Meredith James Howard Meredith (born June 25, 1933) is an American civil rights activist, writer, political adviser, and United States Air Force veteran who became, in 1962, the first African-American student admitted to the racially segregated Univers ...

drew national attention when he transferred from Jackson State to the previously all-white

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi (Epithet, byname Ole Miss) is a Public university, public research university in University, near Oxford, Mississippi, United States, with a University of Mississippi Medical Center, medical center in Jackson, Miss ...

Schedule

References

{{Southwestern Athletic Conference football champions Jackson State Jackson State Tigers football seasons Southwestern Athletic Conference football champion seasons Black college football national champions

Jackson State Tigers football The Jackson State Tigers football team represents Jackson State University in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level as a member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC). After joining the Sou ...