The Big Schools Must Compete With HBCUs Now

Nick Saban recently accused Coach Prime of playing dirty. Saban has won more national championships than any college football coach in history but he’s starting to feel the heat. Rival Texas A&M had the #1 recruiting class in the country while Jackson State University, an HBCU, managed to pull two of the nation’s top recruits. Saban thinks the schools are using NIL (name, image and likeness) deals to entice players and maybe they should. High school recruiting has always been a dirty sport, HBCUs now have a powerful tool to keep up with the Joneses and they should.

Eric Dickerson was the nation’s biggest high school football star in 1979. Texas A&M bought him a gold Pontiac Trans Am to entice him to play. Briefcases full of money from “boosters” have commonly shown up to the homes of top recruits for generations. Money has always been exchanged, it’s just been done under the table, illegally. HBCUs don’t have the billionaire boosters capable of funneling money to top Black recruits but now they don’t have to. NIL is now the new law of the land, allowing players to monetize their name, image and likeness. They can do commercials, endorse products and the like but they cannot receive direct compensation from the schools. So why not use every tool in the bag to secure Black talent? There’s no reason not to.

College football generates billions of dollars and while some elite coaches make $10 million a year, the players receive zero. The players need their cut and since the schools aren’t willing to pay, for now it’s perfectly fine if others don’t mind cutting deals with players for the use of their names or image. The big schools have put HBCUs at a disadvantage for years with their money. Now HBCUs have a powerful tool that will allow them to compete. Let’s level the playing field and get some deserving Black talent major partnership deals, ultimately getting them paid.