Andrew Body’s efficiency powers Alabama State’s first 10-win season in 21 years

Andrew Body did not need a full season to look like the SWAC’s most efficient quarterback. In eight games, the Alabama State passer completed 113 of 160 throws for 1,770 yards, 20 touchdowns and one interception, good for a 203.6 passing efficiency rating that made his stat line look more like a season-long gauntlet than a limited sample.

That is the number that jumps off the page. Body also rushed 71 times for 518 yards and four touchdowns, which is why Alabama State’s offense was dangerous in more than one direction. He opened the season at UAB with 312 passing yards, four passing touchdowns, 119 rushing yards and another score in a 52-42 loss, then followed it with a career-high 442 yards of total offense against Jackson State. The Hornets were not surviving on smoke and mirrors when Body was healthy. They were building game plans around a quarterback who could punish teams from the pocket and on the ground.

The catch was durability. Body sat out the final four games with a shoulder injury, and that is the only real pause in a season that still brought a trophy case full of hardware. He won SWAC Offensive Player of the Year, First-Team All-SWAC honors and the Stats Perform HBCU National Player of the Year award, which was selected from 10 finalists by an eight-person panel and recognizes the top player among 21 HBCU programs in FCS football. Body also earned SWAC Offensive Player of the Week three times and HBCU National Player of the Week twice, which tells you how often he was putting up numbers loud enough to break through the weekly noise.

Alabama State made the most of it. The Hornets finished 10-2 and closed with a 58-21 win over Tuskegee in the 101st Turkey Day Classic, sealing their first 10-win season since 2004. Their 2025 offense led or ranked second in 13 SWAC categories and finished in the top 12 nationally in seven FCS categories, including scoring offense, passing efficiency and completion percentage. That is the real reason Body’s return matters: it is not just about awards, it is about a system that already produced at a high level and now has a chance to do it over 12 games instead of eight.

Body brings a longer résumé than one hot year. He transferred from Texas Southern in January 2024 after entering the portal the month before, and his Tigers bio listed 4,103 passing yards and 27 touchdown passes. He arrived in Montgomery with a strong pedigree from Miller High School in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he finished third all-time in state passing history with 13,000 yards. The talent has never been the question. The next step is whether Alabama State can get a full season out of it, because that is what turns a 10-win surprise into a real SWAC contender.