The season ended just as it began for Bethune-Cookman. The Wildcats are atop the season-ending Football Championship Series-Division I Add's HBCU Sports Report Football Poll, making them the FCS HBCU National Champions.
The Wildcats, who finished the season 10-3, lost only one game in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, late in the season in an upset by Norfolk State. Their other two losses came to the nation's top FBS-Division I team, Florida State, and to 11th-ranked FCS team Coastal Carolina in the first round of the FCS playoffs. The Wildcats ranked second in the MEAC in total offense and defense and sported the nation's third ranked defense.
The nation's sixth-ranked defense belonged to the second-ranked Tennessee State Tigers. TSU (10-4) narrowly lost their opening game to Bethune-Cookman, but ran off seven straight wins before their first of two losses to Eastern Illinois, the second in the second round of the FCS playoffs.
In the Division II poll, Winston-Salem State again went undefeated in the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association and finished 10-2 to claim the Add's HBCU Sports Report Division II National Championship. Their only two losses came to top ten Division II team UNC-Pembroke in their opener and to Shephard in the second round of the Division II playoffs last week. The Rams dominated the CIAA, leading the conference in total offense and defense. That defense also led the nation in total defense.
Tuskegee didn't make the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship game after losing to eventual SIAC champions, Miles. But the Golden Tigers were dominant otherwise. Their only other regular season loss was to Winston-Salem State. Tuskegee's season ended in the first round of the Division II playoff in a close loss to North Alabama.
Here are the complete final 2013 FCS-Division I and Division II HBCU football polls:
FCS - Division I
1) Bethune-Cookman
2) Tennessee State
3) Southern
4) Jackson State
5) South Carolina State
6) Alcorn State
7) Alabama State
8) North Carolina A&T
9) Prairie View A&M
10) Howard
Division II
1) Winston-Salem State
2) Tuskegee
3) Virginia State
4) Miles
5) Lane
6) Shaw
7) Stillman
8) Johnson C. Smith
9) Bowie State
10) Albany State
