It’s been more than 600 days since Markquese Bell put on an orange-and-green uniform for a football game with 25,500 fans cheering him and his teammates on inside of Bragg Memorial Stadium.
In his last outing on the gridiron, Bell—a Stats Perform FCS First Team Defensive All-America at Florida A&M—was flying all around the field making plays, securing a team-high 12 tackles in a nail-biting 31–27 loss in the closing minutes of the 2019 Florida Classic against Bethune-Cookman in front of 55,730 people at Camping World Stadium.
“This is the longest I’ve been away from football,” Bell says. “It has been tough, but I’m ready to get back out there.”
The 6' 3", 205-pound defensive back was one of many Rattler players whose dream of playing the fall 2020 season—and then, in spring 2021—was cut short due to the ongoing concerns of the coronavirus pandemic. The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, composed of several HBCUs, postponed fall 2020 sports to the spring and later suspended the spring 2021 football season after six of the MEAC’s football programs opted out of playing.
Several programs in the conference—Delaware State, Howard and South Carolina State—still played. The MEAC allowed individual schools to do what was best for their programs and athletes while following CDC guidelines and the NCAA’s health and safety protocols.
FAMU, along with its south Florida rival, Bethune-Cookman, were among the MEAC programs that did not play. Before fall 2020, the Southwestern Athletic Conference had announced that both BCU and FAMU would become full member institutions starting July 1.
Florida A&M had been part of the MEAC for 39 years, while BCU had made its mark in the league since 1979. Like FAMU and Bethune-Cookman, Hampton—a former MEAC member—left the league for the Big South Conference in 2018, while North Carolina A&T State—a program that has won three MEAC titles with one as a co-champion with SCSU in the last five years—also became an official member of the Big South on July 1.
With the 2021 season starting—which will begin with the COVID-19 delta variant still running rampant—things will be different for players like Bell and Wildcats linebacker Untareo Johnson and tight end Taron Mallard.
Johnson says he is just ready to play football.
“Playing football again is like Christmas,” he says. “We’ve been getting ready for Christmas for two years. I am so ready to see another color jersey on a different side of the ball.”
