HBCU football made history on Saturday as Kentucky State earned its first NCAA Division II playoff bid, one of five to make the field. KYSU defeated Shorter 35–7 in a rescheduled Week 11 game. While the win on the field was decisive, the days leading up to it were filled with controversy — and head coach Felton Huggins is setting the record straight.
At the heart of the situation was a now-public dispute with Delta State head coach Todd Cooley, who told Football Scoop that Kentucky State had backed out of a scheduled game in Mississippi. Huggins, however, said the notion that his program was avoiding the matchup is both misleading and unfair — especially given the ongoing communication between the two programs.
Huggins, a former NFL wide receiver and longtime assistant coach, has brought stability and vision to a program that hadn’t sniffed national relevance in decades. His team just missed out on an SIAC Championship Game appearance with an 8-2 record before the final week of the regular season. That success didn’t happen overnight, and neither did the logistics behind KSU’s Week 11 opponent.
D2 dispute goes national
Cooley expressed frustration that Kentucky State opted to play Shorter—a team from Conference Carolinas—rather than make the trip to Cleveland, Mississippi to face Delta State.
“You’ve got Kentucky State, who signed a contract to play us… and they’re not,” Cooley said. “They’re telling us they’ve got an agreement to play the third-place team in Conference Carolinas. Well, Shorter is not the third-place team.”
Cooley’s claims made national headlines not often focused on Division II football playoffs. The original story had no response from KYSU — nor did it make it plain it reached out to them.
Kentucky State pushes back
Huggins pushed back hard on that narrative, saying Kentucky State was very transparent in the process in the weeks leading up to the final week of the regular season.
“Even when we first previously talked about this in early May, early May, April, it was communicated about, again, the conference mandate that we had at the end of the season. Told them if we was out of contention from anyone in those other games, we definitely will play. Even to the point where — when we got on the run over a month and a half ago definitely had communication with the AD and him (Cooley),” he told HBCU Gameday.
“And so even to the point, I would just say me and him talked the head coach at Delta we talked a week and a half before going into the Valdosta State game. And I would just say he knew that we communicated with him but he didn’t realize that he told me, he’s already been looking for games. But — for me — to go out there and have selective outrage because you want to pick and choose, and then you try to come back and feel like we’re on the low totem pole, a low hanging fruit. That don’t sit well, but we did everything we’re supposed to do.”
SIAC Commissioner Backs the Call
SIAC Commissioner Dr. Anthony Holloman also weighed in, defending his conference and its member institutions.
“As the commissioner of the SIAC, I am an unapologetic advocate for my member institutions,” Holloman said. “It’s my responsibility to put them in the best position to achieve our desired outcomes. We want to play for championships. And we want to get as many deserving teams into the NCAA playoffs as possible.”
He added that the matchup against Shorter, though the Hawks had a poor record, still met the standards outlined in the agreement with Conference Carolinas, which was signed in December 2023.
“It wasn’t about dodging anybody,” Holloman said. “This was strategic.”
Kentucky State ended up taking care of business against Shorter and punching its ticket to the NCAA playoffs. Delta State was, a member of the four-team remnant of the Gulf South Conference, was on the outside-looking in of the playoff bubble.
Kentucky State moves forward
Huggins said he emphasized with the players on Delta State’s team, but made it clear where he stood.
“I would just say I feel bad for his ball club because he had a chance to be proactive, and he didn’t. He had a chance to have clarity and clear things up — and he didn’t — he wanted to hitch his wagon and beat his feet. But he had a whole month and a half, two months. He could have been selective with his outrage and he didn’t. So we did everything we’re supposed to do.”
Despite the apparent attempt at a smear campaign, Huggins said he never doubted his team would get the shot to play in the playoffs.
“It was never in doubt that we were getting it. We did everything we supposed to do, and I’m so proud of them and how they competed this year. And now we’re in this playoff and we got a chance to put our shoes on and go dancing.”
Kentucky State now turns its attention to Newberry, who it will travel to in the opening round of the playoffs. It’s a six-hour bus ride, that’s nothing new for the Frankfort, KY-based HBCU.
“We’re on the road, we bring our own juice, we don’t worry about nobody bringing our juice for us,” he said. “But it’s a great opportunity for us and we feel really good about where we’re at and what we can do. And, again, we got a chance to put our good shoes on and go dance a little bit.”
Watch part of the interview on HBCU Gameday’s D2 Football Show on Wednesday.