It is one thing to rebuild. It is another to resurrect. And what Delaware State has done in 2025 can only be described as the latter, a full scale revival that has taken a program from 1 and 11 obscurity to the doorstep of the Celebration Bowl.
A chance to flip the entire HBCU landscape on November 22. And a winner take all showdown in Dover against 8-3 South Carolina State with the MEAC championship on the line.
It feels surreal. It feels improbable. But to DeSean Jackson, it never felt accidental. “We wanted to be special. We wanted to be different,” Jackson said on his weekly conference call, his voice still ragged from screaming through the win over Howard. “This culture has definitely changed. My players take every responsibility of being legendary.” He said that word with the conviction of a man who has watched his team outgrow every limitation placed on it and every doubt attached to it.
Delaware State’s rise did not come from heavy transfers or overnight roster reconstruction. When Jackson was hired, the first portal window had already closed. Most coaches would have viewed that as a setback. Jackson saw clarity. He believed he had enough talent on campus. Six fourth quarter leads blown in 2024 told him that. What the Hornets lacked was not athletes. It was belief. “They needed upbringing. They needed love. They needed to be challenged,” Jackson said. “We poured into them the way they needed to be poured into.” That message landed. The results followed.
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The Hornets stopped collapsing late. They started winning physical battles. The defense became a turnover engine. The run game, long the program’s anchor, turned into a punishing and clock eating weapon. And when teams stacked the box, Jackson simply adjusted, adding wrinkles, leaning on depth and demanding balance. Suddenly the team picked to finish last was playing like a champion.
This season was never supposed to belong to Delaware State. The MEAC storylines in 2025 were expected to revolve around legacy programs and returning contenders. Instead the Hornets seized the narrative. They did it by embracing a grind few noticed, by buying into a coach who told them they could be legendary before anyone else believed they could even be relevant, and by playing a brand of football that transformed every Saturday into another step in a rise no one predicted. “You put us in any predicament, any situation, we will come out on top,” Jackson said. “These young men fell in love with the struggle. They fell in love with being uncomfortable.”
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Now everything comes down to Saturday. South Carolina State will not be intimidated by the moment. They are the standard. They have the pedigree. They have the memory of last year’s meeting, a game Jackson’s players have not forgotten. And now both teams sit at 8 and 3, fully aware of what this weekend means. The winner goes to Atlanta and the Celebration Bowl. The winner writes history. The loser sees the season end.
“We get another opportunity to go be legendary,” Jackson said. “At home. On senior day. With everything on the line. We will be ready.”
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