Jackson State, South Carolina State, and Morgan State hold the top three spots in the #DataDrivenHBCUTop5 computer rankings, and all three have earned their place with winning records.

The human voters agree on the order. In the Week 5 Black College Football Poll released by Inside the HBCU Sports Lab, Jackson State moved up to No. 1 with 494 points and 13 first-place votes, South Carolina State slipped from No. 1 to No. 2 with 482 points and 11 first-place votes, and Morgan State jumped from No. 7 to No. 3 with 404 points and the remaining two first-place votes. Just 12 points separate the top two, and Morgan State is the only other team on the ballot to draw a first-place vote.

Black College Football Poll FCS Division I – Week 5 https://t.co/cPhcbsl3hz

— Inside the HBCU Sports Lab (@HBCUSportsLab1) October 5, 2026

Under the hood, though, the three programs could not look more different in one of our model’s biggest ingredients: strength of schedule. Jackson State has the lowest strength-of-schedule score of any team we track. South Carolina State sits just above it. Morgan State’s score is more than six times higher than South Carolina State’s. Here is how that number is built, what is driving it for each team, and how all three have actually performed when they line up against fellow FCS opponents.

How Strength of Schedule Works in Our Model

Every opponent a team plays receives a quality rating on a scale from 0 to 1. A team’s raw strength of schedule is simply the average of those ratings across every game it has completed this season.

That raw average is then scaled against the entire field of 21 HBCU programs the model tracks. The team with the lowest average lands at 0, the team with the highest lands at 1, and everyone else falls in between. That means a score of 0 does not mean a team played no one of quality. It means its average opponent rating is the lowest in the field this week.

Strength of schedule carries about 18 percent of a team’s overall score. Win percentage carries the most weight at about 34 percent, followed by dominance and head-to-head results at about 20 percent each, with raw statistical margins making up the rest. With last season’s results now fully phased out of the model, none of these three teams is being helped or hurt by what happened in 2025. The full rankings are on our season dashboard, and our Week 4 poll comparison takes a deeper look at how the model weighs margin and head-to-head results.

The three raw averages are closer together than the scaled scores suggest. Jackson State (0.31) and South Carolina State (0.33) are separated by about two hundredths of a point, which is why their scaled scores of 0.000 and 0.054 sit side by side near the bottom of the field. Morgan State’s 0.44 average ranks 13th highest of the 21 teams, right in the middle of the pack.

Jackson State: The Toughest Single Opponent, the Lowest Average

Jackson State’s schedule includes the highest-rated opponent any of the three teams has beaten. Alabama A&M, which the Tigers outlasted 31-28 in the Gulf Coast Challenge, carries a rating of 0.833.

The rest of the slate pulls the average down. Two Division II opponents, Edward Waters (0.105) and Tuskegee (0.087), rate as two of the lowest games on any of the three schedules. Jackson State won those two games by a combined 107-21, but lopsided wins over low-rated opponents add very little schedule credit. The result is a raw average of 0.31, the lowest of the 21 teams in the field.

South Carolina State: Just Above the Floor

South Carolina State’s raw average of 0.33 is only slightly higher than Jackson State’s, so its scaled score of 0.054 sits barely above zero. Like Jackson State, the Bulldogs played two Division II opponents early, Savannah State (0.053) and Virginia State (0.114), and won those games 87-0 and 66-0.

South Carolina State’s rating climbs in the back half of the schedule. Furman (0.551), Bethune-Cookman (0.540) and The Citadel (0.550) all rate above 0.5, and those three games include the program’s only loss, a 34-31 defeat to The Citadel on the final play.

Morgan State: One Game Does Most of the Lifting

Morgan State’s 0.347 is the highest of the three, and one game accounts for most of it. The Bears’ trip to FBS Arizona State carries a rating of 0.905, the highest single opponent rating on any of the three schedules. Morgan State lost that game 70-7, but schedule strength measures who a team plays, not whether it wins.

Towson (0.482) and Villanova (0.560) also add meaningful credit. On the other end, the 55-0 win over Virginia University of Lynchburg, a non-Division I program, carries a rating of 0 and adds nothing to the average.

Take the Arizona State game out, and Morgan State’s average across its other four games drops to about 0.33, right in line with South Carolina State.

How They Compare Against FCS Opponents

Strength of schedule measures who each team has played. To see how each team has performed against comparable competition, we pulled every game each program has played against a fellow FCS opponent this season, excluding Division II, non-Division I, and FBS games.

Against FCS opponents alone, the three schedules look remarkably similar. Jackson State’s three FCS opponents average a rating of 0.45, South Carolina State’s four average 0.45, and Morgan State’s three average 0.43. The differences in overall strength-of-schedule numbers come almost entirely from the non-FCS games.

All three teams are outscoring FCS opponents by seven to nine points per game, but they are getting there in very different ways.

Jackson State Wins Close Games on the Ground

Jackson State is 3-0 against FCS opponents, but none of those games were blowouts. The Tigers beat Tennessee State 26-24, Southern 35-17, and Alabama A&M 31-28, outscoring that group by an average of 7.7 points per game.

The running game has been the constant. Jackson State has averaged 202.0 rushing yards per game against FCS teams and has not committed a turnover in any of the three games. The pass defense has given up 227.0 yards per game in those matchups, the second most of the three teams.

South Carolina State Has the Best Defensive Numbers

South Carolina State’s results against FCS opponents match its tougher-rated schedule. The Bulldogs have allowed just 291.0 yards per game to FCS teams, by far the fewest of the three, and have outgained those opponents by more than 100 yards per game.

The Bulldogs held Florida A&M to minus 1 rushing yard in a 31-13 win in the Orange Blossom Classic and limited Bethune-Cookman to 238 total yards. The Citadel game was the exception, as the Bulldogs allowed 244 rushing yards in their lone loss. South Carolina State is also the only one of the three with a negative turnover margin against FCS teams, at minus 3.

Morgan State Wins Through the Air

Morgan State has the highest scoring average of the three against FCS opponents at 32.0 points per game, and it has done so through the air, averaging 285.7 passing yards per game. The Bears have also allowed the most yardage of the three, 403.7 per game, and have been outgained by FCS opponents on average despite winning all three games.

That profile showed up in Morgan State’s last outing, a 38-35 comeback win at Villanova in which the Bears were outrushed 191 to 77 but threw for 444 yards. Cameron Edge Throws for 444 Yards as Morgan State Rallies Past Villanova 38-35 takes a full look at that game.

What It Means

Jackson State has the cleanest record and the lowest schedule credit, and its wins over FCS opponents have come by narrow margins. Its biggest margins came against Division II opponents that add little to its strength of schedule.

South Carolina State’s schedule and performance are the most closely aligned of the three. Its toughest rated opponents came late, and its defense has produced the strongest numbers against FCS competition.

Morgan State has the highest strength of schedule of the three, but that number rests largely on one FBS game. Against FCS opponents, the Bears have won every game while being outgained, leaning on a passing attack that leads the group.

With strength of schedule locked at about 18 percent of the model, these numbers will keep moving. MEAC play is just getting started for South Carolina State and Morgan State; Jackson State is deeper into its SWAC schedule, and every opponent added from here will shift these averages, and the gaps shown above could look very different in a few weeks.