Black coaches are tired of whispering about college football’s hiring reality
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More than 50 years after Black players finally were allowed to join major college football teams in the American South, Black players populated about half the roster spots in the Football Bowl Subdivision with a record 9,617 participants in 2024-25, according to NCAA statistics.
Consider it proof: Racial integration worked after decades of discrimination.
Just not for coaches.
Out of 136 teams in major college football, only 13 have Black head coaches, down from 17 out of 120 teams in 2011. Of the 34 head coaches in the NCAA’s powerful Big Ten and Southeastern conferences, 33 are White. (Maryland’s Mike Locksley is the only Black head coach in the two leagues.) The SEC hasn’t had a non-interim Black head coach since 2020.
To get a better understanding of this issue, USA TODAY Sports spoke with Black former NFL stars hired as head coaches at a lower-resource level of college football who are trying to break through in a different way — Marshall Faulk, Eddie George and Michael Vick.
They have strong opinions. USA TODAY Sports compiled data to provide context.
“Football’s the only sport that players struggle to come off the field and become a coach,” said Faulk, a Pro Football Hall of Famer who now is the head coach at Southern University in Louisiana. “They look at us like if you’re successful at the game playing then you won’t be successful at the game in any other capacity.”
It often comes down to “comfort,” a word that kept coming up with these former players.
Are school presidents and athletic directors willing to hire people who don’t look like them? Are they willing to consider candidates with backgrounds that are outside the norm in the FBS?
Both of those notions don’t typically give “comfort” for those making hiring decisions, according to the data. But what if some of these former NFL stars can show a new way?
“We gotta get those numbers up, for sure,” said Vick, the former NFL quarterback who is now the head coach at Norfolk State in Virginia.
There are 22 Black athletic directors in FBS
People tend to hire those who look like them, according to numerous employment studies. Of 136 schools at the FBS level, only 22 have athletic directors who are Black. The rest are predominantly White, as are the head coaches in the FBS.
By contrast, Faulk, George (at Tennessee State) and Vick broke into college head coaching jobs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and were hired by Black athletic directors. Same goes for Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders at Jackson State in 2020 before he moved on to Colorado, as well as former NFL star receiver DeSean Jackson, now head coach at Delaware State.
All of these former NFL stars had little or no prior coaching experience. Faulk admits Southern made a “reach” when it hired him as head coach in December after he spent only one year in the profession as a running backs coach under Sanders at Colorado.
But if reach means “risk,” why shouldn’t somebody take a risk on somebody like him?
Look around pro football or even pro basketball, said Faulk, who won a Super Bowl as running back for the St. Louis Rams.
Marshall Faulk: ‘I’m just gonna say what it is’
Faulk named some examples:
∎ Former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan was hired as the team’s “president of football” this year without any front-office or coaching experience.
∎ Former NBA player JJ Redick was hired as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers in 2024 despite having no coaching experience.
∎ Faulk noted the NFL’s Houston Texans considered hiring quarterback Josh McCown as head coach in 2022 despite his lack of any coaching experience.
∎ He also noted how the Falcons just hired a head coach (Kevin Stefanski) with a worse record last year than the coach they fired (Raheem Morris). Stefanski was fired after a 5-12 season with Cleveland while Morris was 8-9 in Atlanta.
Morris is Black. Each of those hires involved a coach or former player who is White.
“I’m just gonna say what it is,” Faulk said. “Matt Ryan can be a GM (president of football in Atlanta, where he oversees the general manager). Why do other players kind of go through and jump through the hoops to be a GM?
“What’s the quarterback (coach) that’s now in Minnesota?” Faulk said referencing McCown. “He was in Houston. They were about to give him the (head coaching) job (in Houston)… He barely played. Played a few games in the league. But it happens. You can be JJ Reddick and never have coaching experience and get the Lakers job. But can Marshall Faulk get the Rams job? Hell no. It is what it is.
“There’s a level of comfort, but we, if this is the route we have to go to show like Coach Prime (Sanders) did, that hey, I can lead an organization, I can do what I need to do,” Faulk said. “And I’ll do that. It’s no different than a lot of other coaches that went this route.
“We don’t have the opportunity of (coach Mike LaFleur) who just got the (Arizona) Cardinals head coaching job who I barely knew was with the (Los Angeles) Rams you know?” Faulk said. “That’s a hell of an opportunity. And I’m gonna say (Rams) coach (Sean) McVay, he’s done a really good job of getting guys ready to get jobs … It’s just weird that the Atlanta Falcons would fire a guy (Morris) who had a better record than the guy that they hired (Stefanski).”
Eddie George: Finding ‘another way’ to head coaching jobs
Add it all up, and it’s clear the traditional way of moving up the coaching ladder hasn’t worked for Black coaches. So now some have been trying a different path, led by Sanders, who started a recent trend by showing how a former NFL star with no college coaching experience can succeed as an HBCU head coach and then move on to the FBS level. George followed Sanders to the FBS level last year as head coach after four seasons at HBCU Tennessee State.
“It’s hard for guys to go up the ladder because there’s a lot of red tape at times,” said George, the former Tennessee Titans running back now the head coach at Bowling Green State. “There’s politics being played at times and you see coaches stay at a certain position for 20 or 30 years without elevating, and that can be frustrating. So there’s one way, and another way is, ‘Hey, you know what? Our résumé speaks for itself.’”
The coaching record of these former NFL stars is mixed so far, with hits and misses among them just like with White coaches. It’s also a small sample size:
∎ George finished 4-8 in his first season last year at the FBS level after going 24-22 at Tennessee State, including 9-4 in 2024.
∎ Jackson, the former Philadelphia Eagles receiver, went 8-4 at Delaware State (HBCU) in his first season in 2025.
∎ Vick, the former Falcons and Virginia Tech quarterback, debuted at 1-11 last year at Norfolk State in Virginia (HBCU).
∎ Sanders went 27-6 at Jackson State (HBCU) before going 4-8, 9-4 and 3-9 the past three seasons at Colorado.
∎ Faulk, a New Orleans native, makes his debut at Southern Sept. 5 against Kentucky State.
“It’s connection-based,” Vick said. “Sometimes it’s more about who you know than what you know. It’s just about getting the opportunity.”
Imagining a new path for Black coaches
Sanders talked about this last year when he referenced the traditional way of moving up the coaching ladder, which often involves starting out as a low-level coach in college and then moving up to be a position coach and coordinator before being considered for a head coaching job. It takes connections to make those steps up the ladder. Sometimes even former NFL stars don’t have them.
“You have no idea how many phone calls I get with former NFL players that want to coach,” Sanders said last season. “Unfortunately, it’s like a system that has been implemented that they didn’t tell nobody, that we had to start here, and start here, and start here until we make it there (while) withholding our accomplishments in our tenure with the NFL.”
That traditional career path for White head coaches produces successes and failures every season. Former Alabama coach Nick Saban came up that way before winning seven national championships. But so did Charlie Weis, who never played college football and went 41-49 as head coach of Notre Dame and Kansas.
Is there any reason a different career path and background couldn’t lead to similar or better results, especially as college football evolves to a more professional model with players getting paid for their names, images and likenesses (NIL)?
Raising money, recruiting and building a team’s brand are bigger part of the job these days — duties that can be well-suited for former NFL stars, even if they have little coaching experience. Coaching details can be delegated to assistants.
“We’re gonna lean on all of our experiences,” Vick said. “And we’re going to lean on people with experience to help us.”
The Doug Williams interview at Kentucky
In all of college football history, only four HBCU head coaches have been directly hired as FBS head coaches — George, Sanders, Jay Hopson and Willie Jeffries. Hopson is White and coached at HBCU Alcorn State before getting hired at Southern Miss in 2016. Jeffries coached at HBCU South Carolina State before he became the first Black head coach at the major college level at Wichita State in 1979, 110 years since the start of college football in 1869.
Why haven’t more successful HBCU head coaches been directly hired at the FBS level?
Former Super Bowl-winning quarterback Doug Williams found the answer to this question after he interviewed for the head coaching job at Kentucky in December 2002. Back then, Williams was the highly successful head coach at HBCU Grambling State, where he led his team to an 11-2 season in 2002. But Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart hired a White coach instead: Rich Brooks from Oregon.
Williams, who is Black, wrote about it in the foreword to a book about the challenges faced by Black coaches published in 2012.
“Barnhart was very honest in explaining the decision to me,” Williams wrote in the book entitled “Crackback!,” authored by former San Jose State head coach Fitz Hill. “I remember the word he used. He said that the ‘comfort’ factor was an issue in terms of me fitting in at Kentucky. It threw me for a loop.”
Williams later found out Barnhart had worked in the athletic department at Oregon when Brooks was the head coach there.
“I can’t blame coach Brooks for using any of those connections to get the Kentucky job,” Williams wrote. “But that’s how it all works.”
Eddie George: ‘Not necessarily a race thing’
Coaching success at the HBCU level otherwise would seem to be a good indicator of future success. It’s the same job with more challenges and without the intense media attention of the Power 4 conferences.
“Coming from an HBCU, I can definitely say that you’re well equipped to take on any problem,” George said. “Because it’s 10 times harder because of the lack of resources.”
George, who won the Heisman Trophy at Ohio State in 1995, used the same word as Williams to describe access to coaching opportunities. Of the 13 Black head coaches in the FBS, four were hired by Black athletic directors.
“It’s not necessarily a race thing,” George said. “It’s more of a comfort thing: ‘This is who I trust in this position.’ My first (athletic director) was Black (at Tennessee State). The next AD I worked for is South African (Derek van der Merwe at BGSU), but he’s White. And it came down to him really looking beyond the resume and looking at the coach, the person and getting to know me to hire me at Bowling Green State.”
‘I’ve got to be damn near perfect’
Following this pattern, there are 17 current White head coaches in the FBS who secured second or third chances after previously getting fired as an FBS head coach, including LSU’s Lane Kiffin, who was previously fired as head coach at Southern California and with the NFL’s Oakland Raiders.
By contrast, only eight Black head coaches in history got second chances at the FBS level after being fired as FBS head coaches, according to USA TODAY Sports research.
This has proven to be a hard pattern to break without more Black coaches getting first chances at success.
“African-American coaches aren’t afforded (second chances), so the pressure really is ‘I’ve got to be damn near perfect to get another opportunity, if this one doesn’t go well,'” George said. “It’s a longer runway for some coaches than for others.”
The college basketball comparison in racial demographics
Hill, the former San Jose State coach, said college basketball has shown that access to head coaching jobs, combined with the success of just a few coaches, can lead to a longer runway and more opportunities for Black head coaches. For example, no Black head coach in major college football has won a national title.
In college basketball, he noted how Black coaches John Thompson (Georgetown), Nolan Richardson (Arkansas) and Tubby Smith (Kentucky) won national titles.
“It changed the brand of what a national championship person looked like,” Hill said. “In football, when you think of national championship coaches, who comes to your mind? I mean, that’s a normal cognitive process.”
In Division I men’s basketball, about half the players were Black in 2024-25, according to NCAA data. There were 97 Black head coaches, accounting for about 27% of all teams, according to the data — a much bigger share than in FBS football.
Michael Vick: ‘It’s a passion’
In the meantime, Faulk, George, Vick, Sanders and Jackson hope to show the way. They didn’t have much, if any, coaching experience before, but now they’re hooked.
“It’s been entertaining, fun, exciting and a headache all in one,” Faulk said of being the new head coach at Southern. “But I wouldn’t change it.”
Vick acknowledged he had a lot to learn last year but is better for it heading into his second season.
“It’s a passion, man,” Vick said. “I felt it during the season last year … even though we didn’t win games. I really felt it coming back into Year 2, which is why I’m doing it, why I love football.”
George called coaching “God’s work” because it’s leading young men.
“Man, I’m gonna go as far as I can go, however long that is,” George said. “And if it’s the rest of my life, that’s it … Everything I’ve gone through, it’s not for me – It’s for someone else. That’s what coaching is.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
Black head coaches in college football FBS in 2026
- Bowling Green: Eddie George
- Colorado: Deion Sanders
- Florida International: Willie Simmons
- Georgia State: Dell McGee
- Kennesaw State: Jerry Mack
- Maryland: Mike Locksley
- Memphis: Charles Huff
- Middle Tennessee: Derek Mason
- Notre Dame: Marcus Freeman
- Oregon State: JaMarcus Shephard
- Syracuse: Fran Brown
- Virginia: Tony Elliott
- Virginia Tech:James Franklin
- Note: The FBS will expand by two teams in July 2026 with the addition of North Dakota State and Sacramento State. This will add another Black head coach and athletic director to the FBS ranks – Sacramento State’s Alonzo Carter and Mark Orr. Several current Black head coaches in the FBS work at lesser-resourced schools that moved up to the FBS since 2005: Kennesaw State (2024), Georgia State (2013) and FIU (2005).
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why aren’t Black coaches moving up in college football? NFL stars try new path
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