Jackson State is having perhaps its greatest football season on the field and at the ticket booth, but how good is Coach Deion Sanders’ third edition of the Tigers?

We’ll never know for sure.

“Coach Prime’s” SWAC squad is 6-0 and ranked No. 7 in the weekly NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) poll. No other HBCU is in the Top 25. There are 128 schools in the FCS, including William & Mary (ranked 13th) and Richmond (25th).

Folks all over are taking notice. The Mississippi school is a huge draw, home and away, averaging 42,293 attendees per opening.

JSU excels at halftime, too, with its Sonic Boom of the South matching band and Prancing J-Settes dancers.

The flamboyant Coach Prime, an NFL Hall of Famer, has been interviewed live on NBC’s “To- day” show and ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Jackson State has drawn added exposure the last couple of years with Coach Prime beating out traditional football powers for premier prospects.

The Tigers are the likely favorites to win the SWAC for a second year in a row and the Celebration Bowl against the MEAC champ. JSU lost to South Carolina State in last year’s Celebration Bowl.

But that’s the end of it. The SWAC and MEAC, the two Division I (FCS) Black conferences, have passed on the NCAA playoffs for the fame and fortune of the nationally televised Celebration Bowl in Atlanta on Dec. 17.

The 24-team FCS playoffs start Nov. 26 and conclude Jan. 8. SWAC and MEAC teams will not be included, by their own choice. Jackson State was 0-12 in FCS playoffs between 1978 and 1997.

No matter how powerful these Tigers are, football fans will be left in the dark about how they stack up with the nation’s best, such as perennial FCS powers North and South Dakota State and Sam Houston, Texas.

Football fans would love to see JSU matched with in-state FBS schools Mississippi and Mississippi State and, better yet, with Coach Prime’s alma mater, Florida State.

The most successful HBCU team of all time, based on NCAA playoffs, was the 1978 Florida A&M Rattlers that won the very first FCS title.