Almost one year ago to the day, I wrote a story about the void of Black coaches during college football’s hiring season that came and went at warp speed.
It mirrored the annual January NFL head coaching hiring period where Black head coaching candidates are left humiliated and frustrated.
In 2020, there were 14 Black head coaches helming FBS programs. At the FCS level, the big hire was Deion Sanders at Jackson State.
At the end of 2021, Washington had fired Jimmy Lake after he basically assaulting a player on the field. But then Notre Dame named Marcus Freeman their head coach, and things were looking up.
Then 2022 arrived.
While Tony Elliott (UVA) and Stan Drayton (Temple) joined the FBS party, gone were Herm Edwards (Arizona St.), Karl Dorrell (Colorado) and Willie Taggart (Florida Atlantic). Then last week, David Shaw (Stanford) retired.
To top it all off, Deion Sanders left Jackson St. and took his talents to Boulder, Colorado this past Saturday.
So as of today, there are only 11 Black head football coaches at FBS programs. That represents a little over 9% of the 131 member institutions.
That’s a major problem.
Donte Williams (USC), Mickey Joseph (Nebraska) and Cadillac Williams (Auburn) making history by becoming their program’s first Black head coaches ever were temporary celebrations as recycled white coaches Lincoln Riley, Matt Rhule and Hugh Freeze took over those teams.
Don’t think that this is a recent phenomenon.
Continue reading over at First and Pen.
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