This is an opinion column.
_____________________
There are now 16 head football coaches in the SEC and they all have two things in common. They get paid millions of dollars to do their jobs, and they’re all white.
A lot is changing about college football this summer. That’s what we’ve been writing about for months. One thing is not, though, and that’s the number of minority head coaches in the Southeastern Conference. It’s a multi-generational indictment on the institution of college football in the Deep South, and if it’s not necessarily racist in spirit, then it is most certainly a function of systemic racism in states that identify as Southern.
No. 6 on my list of 10 Burning Questions for college football’s offseason of change is about the ever-present dearth of Black head coaches in college football. Why, in the year 2024, and for the third year in a row, are there no Black coaches in the SEC?
In the NFL, nine coaches who identify as minorities, including seven of whom are Black, are preparing for the 2024 season. That’s a new record for diversity among head coaches in the history of the NFL. Meanwhile, another all-white SEC Media Days is set to begin on Monday in Dallas. Yet again, the SEC just means more and more head coaching opportunities for white candidates. Twelve schools in the SEC have made head coaching changes over the last four years (and Auburn twice). No one is hiring black head coaches. New to the league this season: Mike Elko at Texas A&M, Kalen DeBoer at Alabama and Jeff Lebby at Mississippi State.
It’s a trend whether SEC commissioner Greg Sankey chooses to address it this year or not.
10 BURNING QUESTION
Question 1: Will Isaiah Bond regret leaving Alabama for Texas?
Question 2: What does Nick Saban really think about Alabama?
Question 3: Where is the hottest seat in college football?
Question 4: Is Oklahoma ready for the SEC?
Question 5: Why is Horns Down so satisfying?
It needs to change, obviously. Diversity throughout head coaches in the SEC is good for the game and, considering the cultural significance of college football in the Deep South, it’s also important for the strength of the region’s social dynamics at large.
Black head football coaches are non-existent in the SEC and under-represented throughout the Football Bowl Subdivision. That’s not a controversial opinion or a so-called divisive topic. It’s a fact. There were 14 Black head coaches at the FBS level in 2023. This season, the number is 16 out of 134. That’s 11.9 percent while more than half of college football players at the FBS level identify as Black.
Why are we going on three seasons without a Black head coach in the SEC? It’s about booster money and the power it wields, but it’s also about lack of opportunities.
Of all the FBS level football teams throughout the entire South (plus Oklahoma and Texas), only two will have Black head coaches for the 2024 season. They are Derek Mason, in his first season at Middle Tennessee State, and Tony Elliott, who is going into his third season at Virginia. Elliott was the only Black head football coach at the FBS level in the entire South in 2023.
There’s also this. When Black coaches do get opportunities in the South, it’s at places where it’s tough to win.
Mason coached at Vanderbilt from 2014 to 2020. He was then a defensive coordinator at Auburn and Oklahoma State before taking the year off in 2023. After back-to-back seasons with Bryan Harsin and Mike Gundy, who can blame him?
Elliott is 6-16 over two years at Virginia, but his predecessor, Bronco Mendenhall, was 36-38 over six seasons before stepping down in 2021.
Hiring more Black coaches starts with giving more assistants the opportunity to be primary coordinators. More specifically, it means hiring more Black assistants to be offensive coordinators. According to the NCAA’s demographics database, there were only four — yes, four — Black offensive coordinators among Group of 5 teams in 2023.
Power 5 teams had slightly more with 11.
In 2024, Derrick Nix at Auburn will be the only Black offensive coordinator in the SEC. There are signs of progress, though. Four other Black coaches will have co-offensive coordinator or passing-game coordinator designation. Among them is former Alabama assistant Holman Wiggins, who is the co-offensive coordinator at Texas A&M. The others are passing-game coordinator Chris Jackson at Texas, co-offensive coordinator Cortez Hankton of LSU and JaMarcus Shephard, the co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach at Alabama.
Most Popular Stories by Joseph Goodman
On the defensive side of the ball, there have been more opportunities for Black assistant coaches to become coordinators. This season, the SEC’s Black defensive coordinators are Tim Banks at Tennessee and Clayton White at South Carolina. There are nine co-defensive coordinators or defensive passing-game coordinators throughout the league, including former Alabama player Todd Bates at Oklahoma and former Auburn players Travis Williams at Arkansas and Travaris Robinson at Georgia.
Nick Saban produced an assembly line of future head coaches at Alabama. So far, only two of them are Black. Know why? It’s because Mike Locksley was Saban’s first and only Black offensive coordinator of his entire career. Most recently, former Alabama running backs coach Charles Huff was hired at Marshall.
In today’s modern game of college football, coaches who are offensive coordinators are on the best paths to becoming head coaches. Was Saban racist for only hiring one Black offensive coordinator? No, of course not. Saban wanted what was best for Alabama’s offense, and he hired offensive coordinators he believed would help Alabama win games regardless of color. Again, it’s all about opportunities, and that’s why I’m encouraged about the future.
Former college quarterbacks are the players most likely to become future college offensive coordinators. In 2024, the two-deep depth charts among SEC teams will feature 11 Black quarterbacks. That’s 34 percent of the league’s passers.
It’s a notable improvement from a decade ago, but signs of progress remain too slow.
BE HEARD
Got a question for Joe? Want to get something off your chest? Send Joe an email about what’s on your mind for the mailbag. Let your voice be heard. Ask him anything.
Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of the book “We Want Bama: A Season of Hope and the Making of Nick Saban’s Ultimate Team.”