The AT&T Nation’s Football Classic®, an annual football game featuring historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), will take place at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC, on Friday, September 18^th at 7:00pm. For the first time in the history of the Nation’s Classic, Howard University and Hampton University will battle it out for bragging rights to claim the title “The Real HU”. But something is special about this year’s game as opposed to the ones in the past. 

“We had four successful years in this game and when we created it back in 2011 it was about taking advantage of our unique destination the demographics of our area and the history of this city. It also helped that we have a great HBCU in our backyard with Howard. We got together Howard and Morehouse to play in the initial game, they hadn’t played in almost fifteen years. Now we are moving  into the second phase of this game and what is really important to ensure is that the competition on the field continues to be something that is compelling to everyone. We felt like a MEAC game with Howard and Hampton already having such a great rivalry is really the way to take this to the next level” says Erik Moses, senior vice president and managing director of Events DC, Sports and Entertainment Division.

The AT&T Nation’s Classic attracts thousands of people from all across the country each year. With the rivalry being so intense between the two dominant schools, both head coaches from Howard and Hampton wanted to share a few words with the press. Coach Gary Harrell of Howard University says “The rivalry to me as afar as this it was always thought of as bragging rights. I truly believe that a football program starts off the year winning does so much wonders for the campus life. This game is played early, it is our first conference game so outside the rivalry it is very important to us. Hampton is our biggest rivalry so we have to make sure we go out and face a tough opponent. Connell Maynor of Hampton responded similarly stating ” It’s bragging rights, it’s almost like another homecoming game. They want you to win the homecoming game, they want you to win the rivalry games and those are the ones they come to so those are the ones they want you to win. For the players you don’t have to do a lot of motivation for these games because they understand the magnitude of it. We just have to get them prepared to play and give them a good show”.

This will be a game for the books, that you do not want to miss out. The magical date again is September 18th at RFK Stadium at 7:00 pm. See who will take the crown as “The Real HU” !