Orange Blossom Classic: Kendra Bulluck-Major on Leadership, Legacy, Growth and Year 6

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — The 2026 Denny’s Orange Blossom Classic presented by Able Business Services kicks off Sunday, Sept. 6, at 3 p.m. ET at Hard Rock Stadium. This season, ESPN will broadcast as the two reigning HBCU national championship coaches take the same field.

South Carolina State and Chennis Berry finished No. 1 in the final 2025 BOXTOROW Division I coaches and media polls. Florida A&M’s first-year head coach, Quinn Gray Sr., won the Division II title in the same poll series at Albany State. For executive director Kendra Bulluck-Major, the pairing was a Godsend when she announced the teams in February.

Kendra Bulluck-Major is the executive director of the Denny's Orange Blossom Classic. | Credit: OBC

Orange Blossom Classic 2026: What to Know

Matchup: South Carolina State Bulldogs vs. Florida A&M Rattlers
Date and time: Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026, 3 p.m. ET
Venue: Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida
TV: ESPN, the Classic’s broadcast partner since the 2021 revival
Tickets: orangeblossomclassic.com/tickets
Head coaches: Chennis Berry (South Carolina State), Quinn Gray Sr. (Florida A&M)
Executive director: Kendra Bulluck-Major, sixth year running the revived game

Bulluck-Major has run the game since it returned in 2021. She met with HBCU Legends in what has become our annual preseason interview since the 2023 season. The 2026 matchup fits a pattern she has stopped trying to predict.

"Every year I say that it can't get any better than the current matchup, and then we seem to keep elevating," Bulluck-Major said. "I just don't think it could get any better with these two HBCU national champion coaches."

South Carolina State went 10-3 in 2025 and took its second HBCU Division I national championship in five years. Chennis Berry arrived in Orangeburg in December 2023 from Benedict, a Division II SIAC program, which puts both Sunday coaches on the same career path out of Division II HBCU football.

Coaches Chennis Berry (South Carolina State) and Quinn F. Gray Sr. (Florida A&M) at Orange Blossom Classic Press Conference — Coaches Chennis Berry ( lower, South Carolina State) and Quinn F. Gray Sr. (upper, Florida A&M) at Orange Blossom Classic Press Conference in Miami Gardens, Florida, Hard Rock Stadium; Sept. 4, 2026 | Orange Blossom Classic

The Bulldogs and Rattlers each won in Week 0. South Carolina State dominated Savannah State 87-0 in a school-record performance, which happens to be Berry’s alma mater.

Gray and Florida A&M opened the season with a 20-7 victory against Albany State in Tallahassee. That was Gray’s former team.

He led the Golden Rams to a 12-2 record last season, won the SIAC championship, reached the NCAA Division II quarterfinals, and finished No. 1 in the final BOXTOROW Division II poll, the program’s first national championship title.

Gray, a South Florida native and a Dillard High School graduate in Fort Lauderdale, returned to his alma mater this offseason, hoping to restore FAMU to winning after a couple of years of inconsistency.

Florida A&M is playing the season under an NCAA postseason ban tied to Academic Progress Rate penalties announced in April. Bulluck-Major said she raised the subject with Gray at SWAC Media Day.

"I don't think that there is anyone better suited to lead this program at this particular time," she said. She said Rattler Nation has rallied behind Gray despite the ban.

The game also carries a personal connection for South Carolina State’s administration. Bulluck-Major said athletic director Oliver "Buddy" Pough played in an original Orange Blossom Classic in the 1970s, a game Florida A&M won, and raised it with Berry at the May press conference in Miami.

"I told Coach Berry, I said, no pressure, but you got to bring this home for your boss," she said.

OBC — Sep 4, 2022; Miami, Florida, US; The logo at midfield at Hard Rock Stadium before the Orange Blossom Classic between Jackson State and Florida A&M.. Mandatory Credit: Rich Storry-USA TODAY Sports | USA TODAY Sports

A decade of work before the first kickoff

The original Orange Blossom Classic ran from 1933 to 1978 and served as Florida A&M’s postseason showcase. The first game, in 1933, was a 9-6 Florida A&M victory over Howard.

For Bulluck-Major, she grew up hearing about those legendary OBCs from her father, a Florida A&M supporter and a fan of the Marching 100.

"I wanted the same opportunity for our students here down in South Florida," she said. When she began working on the game’s revival, the nearest HBCU football classic required a trip to Orlando for the Florida Classic.

The effort took more than 10 years for Bulluck-Major, who noted the project started when her oldest son was 8. At one point, she set the work aside more than once as Florida A&M went through several administrative changes.

She mentioned that her son continued asking about it, which kept her pulling the project back off the shelf.

"When you tell a child that you're going to do something, you have to do it," she said. Deciding to produce a football game is a massive undertaking, one Bulluck-Major never shied away from the challenge.

Finally, the announcement came in March 2019, on stage at the Jazz in the Gardens festival in Miami Gardens with Florida A&M administrators present. The plan was to play in September 2020.

"I said the next day after we signed the contract, ‘I said, oh my gosh, I've got to produce a game,’" she said. "Never got that far. There's a next step to this that I hadn't even thought about."

COVID-19 pushed the game to 2021. The delay landed hard at the time.

Kendra Bulluck-Major, Executive Director of the Orange Blossom Classic. | Credit: Orange Blossom Classic

"When COVID hit, and you've been working on something for 10 years, in my mind, I'm like, okay, God, you sent a whole pandemic just to stop this game," she said. The COVID pandemic’s pause actually benefited her team, because a new coach was to be hired in Jackson, Mississippi.

The extra year gave her another cycle to sell sponsorships and plan. It also changed the field. Bulluck-Major said the Classic was already under contract with Jackson State before Deion Sanders was hired there. But having Coach Prime (Jackson State) and Willie Simmons (FAMU) coaching added to the mystique of the new Orange Blossom Classic.

"A lot of people think that we went and got Jackson State the minute that Deion Sanders became the coach," she said. "Well, that was not the case. We were already contracted for Jackson State."

Her son enrolled at Florida A&M and joined the football team that same year.

Orange Blossom Classic results since the 2021 revival:

2021 - Jackson State vs. Florida A&M | Jackson State 7-6 | 31,000, Denny’s
2022 - Jackson State vs. Florida A&M | Jackson State 59-3 | 39,907, Denny’s
2023 - Jackson State vs. Florida A&M | Florida A&M 28-10 | 24,967, Denny’s
2024 - Alabama State vs. N.C. Central | N.C. Central 31-24 | 10,256, Denny’s
2025 - Florida A&M vs. Howard | Howard 10-9 | 22,455, Invesco QQQ
2026 - South Carolina State vs. Florida A&M Sunday, 3 p.m. ET, ESPN, Denny’s

The 2024 game, played without Florida A&M, drew the smallest crowd of the revived era.

Howard University Bison head coach Larry Scott celebrates the game-winning field goal at the Orange Blossom Classic. | Orange Blossom Classic, Chinedu Ernesto

The tunnel: running a classic and parenting a player

Bulluck-Major runs the Classic year-round and works the stadium on game day. She also sets aside a window to watch her son play.

"I tell my team all the time, I'm like, listen, for the first three quarters, just let me be a parent," she said. "So I stand in the tunnel, on FAMU's side, of course, and just kind of dap everybody up as they're coming through the tunnel. And I get to be a mom."

When the game ends, she said, she stands at the locker room door with the other parents before going back to work.

The 2025 OBC tested that arrangement. Howard beat Florida A&M 10-9 on a last-second field goal in a rematch of the 2023 Celebration Bowl, and Bulluck-Major was on the Florida A&M sideline preparing to hand out the trophy.

"I had a moment like, okay, do I go console my kid or do I run over here and start this trophy presentation?" she said.

Sep 3, 2023; Miami Gardens, FL, USA; Florida A&M Rattlers head coach Willie Simmons reacts after winning the Orange Blossom Classic against the Jackson State Tigers at Hard Rock Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports | USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect

How the Orange Blossom Classic measures success

Bulluck-Major came to the event from the insurance and real estate industries. She still runs an insurance agency and a nonprofit that operates after-school and summer programs.

The business relationships she already had, particularly with Miami-Dade County officials and the visitors bureau, are what got her in the door against early skepticism.

"While I was walking in the door by myself, I was able to say, these are the people who I've met with and who I've spoken with and whose support I have," she said. "They were saying, who is this?"

Ticket sales and sponsorship revenue are not the only measures she uses. "I always say that you're known by your fruit," she said, pointing to scholarships and to former staff and interns who have moved on to jobs with larger sports organizations.

HBCU Legends reported after the 2025 game that the Classic had awarded nearly $600,000 in scholarships since 2021, including more than $66,000 that year. Sponsor releases put the event’s economic impact on Miami-Dade County at more than $100 million.

Television is the other number. Bulluck-Major said the 2024 game, played without Florida A&M and through an extended rain delay that forced a channel change, drew close to 700,000 viewers on ESPN. It also had 10,256 fans who braved inclement weather at Hard Rock Stadium. It was the smallest in-stadium crowd of the revived campaign.

"We may not have had local fans that wanted to be in the stands, but we put out two good teams, Alabama State and North Carolina Central, that people tuned in to see," she said.

That audience is what sells. "As long as people are tuning in, then we have leverage on multiple sides," she said, adding that national viewership lets her price 30-second spots directly to corporate partners rather than sending them to a network sales desk.

Since our July interview, both open sponsorship slots have been filled. Denny’s returned as title sponsor on Aug. 24, and Miami-based Able Business Services was named presenting sponsor on Aug. 4.

“We’re able to get more sponsorship dollars because corporate partners see the value in doing media buys with us so that they can get their brand out there to our demographic," Bulluck-Major said.

Beyond Labor Day: What comes next for the Classic

Bulluck-Major said the long-term goal is a Miami event that does not depend on school affiliation, anchored by a long-term contract with Florida A&M. She also said a venue change is not out of the question as NFL scheduling shifts.

"I don't want the game to ever be thought of just around Labor Day," she said. The organization has run a pickleball tournament for the past two years, paired with a day party. "We didn't find out until later that real, real pickleball enthusiasts consider it to be a very quiet sport, but they got through it," she said. Women's flag football is under discussion with several potential partners.

"What I think remains consistent is that you always want to create an experience out outside of the game. The game just kind of happens to be the backdrop."

Her goal: for the Orange Blossom Classic to be “the place to be,” regardless of attendees' HBCU affiliation.

This year’s slate had a career fair on Sept. 1 at the Betty T. Ferguson Recreational Complex and continues with the kickoff luncheon and the sixth annual Denim Party on Sept. 4, an all-white affair on Sept. 5, and a Fan Fest at Hard Rock Stadium on game day featuring Trick Daddy and Trina. There won’t be a Battle of the Bands event this year.

What makes the Orange Blossom Classics special for Bulluck-Major?

Beyond her own family, Bulluck-Major is fiercely dedicated to ushering in the next generation of young professionals, especially women, into the sports business. She treasures interactions with young women at panels and through internships, seeing herself as a role model.

Also, it’s her connection with the spectators, alums, and fans, whom she considers investors.

"If you buy a ticket, you're a donor," she said.

Each year, Kendra Bulluck-Major is fulfilling her dream, but in the process, she’s inspiring women in leadership to change the dynamic in the world of sports. The honors and accolades keep coming for her and the OBC. Has it changed her perspective?

"I never set out to be this woman in sports. It just happened. I wanted to bring this game back, and as a result, I became this woman in sports."

By merging tradition with innovation, Kendra Bulluck-Major has set a template for how HBCU classics—and sports leadership—should look in the future: inclusive, community-centered, and unafraid to break new ground.

To attend or support the Denny’s Orange Blossom Classic, visit —and become a part of Bulluck-Major’s living legacy.

Orange Blossom Classic 2026 FAQ

Who is playing in the 2026 Orange Blossom Classic?

South Carolina State faces Florida A&M. South Carolina State is the reigning HBCU Division I national champion. Florida A&M is coached by Quinn Gray Sr., who won the HBCU Division II national championship at Albany State last season.

When and where is the 2026 Orange Blossom Classic?

Sunday, Sept. 6, 2026, at 3 p.m. ET at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida.

What channel is the Orange Blossom Classic on?

ESPN. The network has carried the game since the 2021 revival and is also the SWAC’s linear broadcast partner for its flagship classics.

Is Florida A&M eligible for the postseason in 2026?

No. The Rattlers are serving a postseason ban tied to NCAA Academic Progress Rate penalties announced in April. They remain eligible for regular-season games, including the Orange Blossom Classic.

Who runs the Orange Blossom Classic?

Kendra Bulluck-Major is the executive director. She spent more than 10 years reviving the game, announced its return in March 2019, and staged the first revived edition in 2021.

How long has the Orange Blossom Classic been played?

The original ran from 1933 to 1978 as Florida A&M’s postseason showcase, beginning with a 9-6 Florida A&M win over Howard. The revived game has been played every year since 2021. Sunday is the sixth edition of the revived era.

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