On Saturday, Colorado reportedly made Jackson St. head coach Deion Sanders an offer to become the Buffaloes’ next head coach.
In response, Deion should politely tell them “no thanks” and go back to preparing to face Southern at the SWAC Championship.
While Sanders has openly stated that he would entertain offers from P5 programs if the offer is financially beneficial for him and his assistant coaches, he has a much more important task in front of him that outweighs the big money a P5 institution can offer.
He has become the face of HBCU football and he has the unique opportunity to continue leading its ascent back to the power status it once possessed.
With his personality, attitude and influence, Deion can continue to make HBCU programs realistic destinations for four and five-star recruits, just like he did for Travis Hunter and Kevin Coleman at Jackson St.
HBCUs were always viable opportunities for athletes. Yet once media rights deals swelled the coffers of P5 college football conferences, HBCU programs fell out of favor.
But in basically two seasons, Deion has returned the spotlight to HBCUs, much to the chagrin of teams, coaches and media pundits who don’t understand the proud history and tradition of HBCU football.
These programs produced Hall of Famers such as Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, Shannon Sharpe, Michael Strahan, Aeneas Williams, Deacon Jones and Mel Blount.
These athletes made HBCU programs so dominant that college football powerhouses such as Alabama, Notre Dame and Penn State didn’t want to play them.
Instead, they wised up and opened their doors to Black athletes they once denied. That severely limited the once free-flowing talent pipeline to HBCU programs.
Now Sanders has reopened the spigot and channeled the pipeline back to these institutions. He even got ESPN College Gameday to show up at Jackson St this past October.
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