HBCU

• Gene Therapy: What Should A Coach Do?

  Apr 15, 2022 Gene Clemons 0 Comments

  

   

  by Gene Clemons

   

  When I first read the headline that the head volleyball coach at Grambling dismissed the entire volleyball team, I thought it was a joke or that there was something more to the story that I was missing. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that the new coach did in fact cut every young lady off her team. My first reaction was, "Damn! That’s cold-blooded!” The other people I talk to regularly all felt that this coach was wrong for what she was doing. I began to feel a weird duality at the time. As a player and a human being, I felt like this was the wrong thing to do but as a coach, I could understand the move. Ultimately, I don’t believe that I would have the ability to do that to players, but I can’t pretend that I don’t understand. So in an effort to explore this from the other side I wanted to explain why this may not be the last time you see a drastic move like this made.

   

  I know how coaches who take over bad jobs get treated when they don’t win. They are treated as if they are failures, like it is their fault the team has not won. If it is their first opportunity as a head coach, they may never get another job. Every time they interview for a job, they must explain why they were not successful in their first stint. Most of the time we all know the real reason but we just don’t want to admit it. The players were not good enough and the coach was not given enough time to recruit better, implement or change a culture, and get the team going in a winning direction. But if a coach goes into an interview and blames a lack of talent, then it is received as if he is shifting the blame off himself. So coaches are almost forced to admit to shortcomings that they don’t really believe they possess in order to show that they have grown from their first opportunity. 

   

  Meanwhile the players rarely receive the scrutiny associated with losing. There is usually some accountability piece they are missing. So many players get to college and feel like the job is over. They have reached their goal and now is the time to reap the rewards of their hard work throughout the prep ranks. So they go to college and never improve beyond what they were in high school. Some believe they are being disrespected when they are not playing and they transfer but others don’t really care about playing as long as they are getting that scholarship money. That has a negative effect on the players who do play. They don’t feel the pressure coming from the players behind them and therefore don’t rise to the level they need to be in order to elevate the team. Rinse, wash, repeat and you end up in a situation that a lot of the non-revenue generating sports find themselves in, especially at HBCU’s. 

   

  Chelsey Lucas seems to know HBCU women’s volleyball very well. Before being named the head coach at Grambling, she was the head coach at Arkansas Pine Bluff for three seasons and before that she spent three seasons at Alcorn State. At both stops her overall record was under .500 and she had to make due with small victories. She improved both of the programs she took over and now she gets a chance to return to her Alma Mater which makes this story take an ever more interesting turn. Who knows the culture of Grambling volleyball better than a woman who had personal success representing the university on the court. She was a first team All-SWAC performer and defensive player of the year in 2006 for the Tigers. I am sure she could attest to the skill level and accountability inside the locker room. As someone from the outside looking in, if a coach felt this was what she needed to do in order for the team to have success, her experience would say that if anyone had an understanding of what to do it would be her. 

   

  Let’s not pretend as if this has not been done in some capacity before. Over the years coaches have found creative ways to separate players from a program. They have done everything from lowering scholarships to the bare minimum, to creating expectations that are impossible to meet. Every time you see a player enter the transfer portal you can't possibly believe it is because they want to, sometimes they feel they have no other choice. The writings on the wall. When Taulia Tagovailoa watched his brother Tua rise to superstar status at Alabama so he naturally thought he would follow in his big brother's footsteps. He quickly learned that it would not be the case and he transferred to Maryland. That may have been the best thing for him. It humbled him and probably made him work even harder to prove the people at Bama wrong or to live up to his own expectations. What Lucas did was cut out the histrionics that come with these moves or at least she thought she did. 

   

  Looking at this from a coach's perspective I bet she felt she was doing the best thing for the school, for those players, and definitely for herself. For the school, it's an opportunity to build a winning culture and a team that alumni and donors want to invest in. For the players it is a chance to possibly find a school better built for their skills or maybe it is the motivation necessary to raise their abilities and expectations. For her, it is a chance to create a legacy at the place she called home. An opportunity to help thousands of young ladies reach their full potential as players and as women why winning at a high level.

   

  The one thing that we are not sure of but would absolutely be a necessity in this case is what is she doing to help those displaced young ladies find another home. We don't know how much scholarship money these ladies were on. We know it is volleyball and it is at an HBCU so it would not be irresponsible to say they probably don't have the same amounts of equivalencies as Penn State. Currently there is push back and outrage over the coach's decision and campaigns are in place to try and reinstate the players but ultimately who does that truly serve. If it is about playing the game the relationship is probably forever fractured.  The only hope is that Lucas is helping those players find other homes to finish their careers and more importantly their degrees because that is still the main goal.

   

  I'm sure all of the discourse and media attention surrounding this decision doesn't make the job easier. The old saying, "You have to crack some eggs to make an omelet" never tells you what happens when the shells get in the food. However, this episode plays out, if it doesn't end with winning Lucas will undoubtedly pay a steep price. If they win, it will cover up the stench of this decision and the fallout from it. She could go on to have a fruitful career and so many more women than she hurt with this decision but that is a big if. The team is 81-207 since 2011. That is a lot to turn around and as of now, the clock is ticking. I wish those young ladies nothing but the best, and I hope Lucas wins.

   

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  Gene Clemons is a Sports Analyst and Contributor to CWN Sports. His weekly column and podcast - Gene Therapy focuses on Sports, Politics and Social/Urban issues.

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• Super Bowl LVI - Here for the Halftime Show

  Feb 14, 2022 Gene Clemons 1 Comments

  

   

   

  by Gene Clemons

   

  Super Bowl LVI took on an HBCU feel this season. Congratulations to the LA Rams and all of their mercenary players who were able to turn this team into a winner. It has been said that the Rams have justified moving back to LA because of the success they had. The truth is that they had the same type of success in St. Louis. Ultimately this was a money play and fortunately for them, it worked. SoFi Stadium was packed to capacity and on full display. It’s over five-billion-dollar price tag was spent on every amenity that a high dollar fan would ever want but only a fraction of a percent was spent to protect players as the synthetic turf claim yet another victim. It was the type of game that most of us are used to a back-and-forth chess match where referees made calls and no calls on both teams that helped impact the outcome. We waited to watch offensive innovation and once again the spotlight was stolen by defensive brilliance. Stars were stars and the Rams had more than the Bengals. In the end that was the difference. It was OBJ, Cooper Kupp, Vonn Miller and Aaron Donald walking away champions and shedding tears of joy.

   

  But did anyone really care? From the moment it was announced everyone was buzzing about the Super Bowl halftime show. The idea of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dog, Eminem, Mary J, and Kendrick Lamar all gracing the stage together for the night seemed like an homage to the West Coast. The halftime show commercial was released almost three weeks before the big game and garnered over 15 million streams on YouTube. It was clear that everyone was hyped up about the halftime show more than the game. But what made this halftime show different? What made this one unique?

   

  For me and for many others like me, it was personal. We have seen performers grace the Super Bowl stage that we have grown up with but the aggressive, outlandish, outlaw nature of Hip Hop, especially Hip Hop in the 90’s, that we fell in love with and that defined our generation was something we never believed would get the opportunity to headline that event. It was too raw, too real, too rebellious. Hip Hop artists might get a song on the set of another Pop artist set but never the stage to itself. Hip Hop has finally had the opportunity to do what many of its artists have not been able to do throughout the years due to untimely death or incarceration, mature.

   

  Never forget Dr. Dre was once a part of a group that openly defied police and their practices and was arrested repeatedly for performing “F The Police”. Snoop Dogg was on trial for murder. These two guys have grown up to be luminaries of the genre. Dre is a billion-dollar mogul and Snoop Dog is every artist’s cool-ass uncle. Mary J was the round the way girl that grew up to be the unquestioned queen of Hip Hop Soul. Eminem went from being the enigmatic caricature vulturing black culture for profit, to one of the most socially conscious performers of the time. Now they were able to receive their flowers in the light reserved for the hall of famers.

   

  The performance was everything and certainly lived up to the hype. Dre and Snoop kicked it off and both performed the songs we would expect to hear. They didn’t sound run down or old, they were definitely more mature but also still masters of the craft. In true hip hop fashion, the surprise performer was, another hip hop artist and 50 Cent hung upside down doing his smash hit “In Da Club”. Mary J was glammed out and did her thing although I admittedly thought there were a couple other songs that would work better than the songs, she performed but that’s just me nitpicking. The fly thing about the halftime performance is that you were able to see the torch being passed from those luminaries to one of the hottest performers today, Kendrick Lamar. He embodied everything we love about the performance aspect of the genre. Then came Eminem with high energy and raw emotion. Even a star like Anderson Paak was there on the drums smiling from ear to ear because you could only imagine that he too grew up like we did listening to this music and now he was a part of making history. How many artists do you know would be humble enough to play the background like that?

   

  The audacity of Hip Hop to embrace its brand right there for everyone to see. It was reported that Dr. Dre was told to not say “still not loving police” and he did it anyway. Eminem was told to refrain from kneeling, and he did it anyway. Why would we expect anything less from this genre? It was epic and the perfect respect paid to the ones who came before them.

   

  This halftime performance ranks third for me. Number one will always be Prince because how do you top singing Purple Rain in the rain; it was epic! Second is the Beyonce performance because it really was one of the most action-packed half-time shows ever, it just kept coming. I felt tired after it was over. Then comes this show followed by Michael Jackson and then the Bruno Mars show. I originally said Katy Perry on the podcast but my guy Brandon Howard who I travel down memory lane with on the podcast made me change my mind.

   

  From a nostalgic aspect, it hit all the bells and really left me feeling good about the opportunities for hip hop going forward. It has broken through the glass ceiling and now the sky's the limit. It has renewed my hope that we will see more hip-hop headliners and keep alive my dream of an Outkast Super Bowl halftime show.

   

  Let’s make this happen Jay Z!

   

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  Gene Clemons is a Sports Analyst and Contributor to CWN Sports. His weekly column and podcast - Gene Therapy focuses on Sports, Politics and Social/Urban issues.

   

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• Gene Therapy-The Flawed Logic of a Franchise QB

  Dec 24, 2021 Gene Clemons 0 Comments

  
  

   

  by Gene Clemons

   

  In a world where we want everything right now, the NFL has chosen to go the opposite way when it comes to the quarterback position. Year after year we see teams reach on potential while disregarding production at that position. The rationale is always the same, “We need to find our franchise quarterback.” If we were to take an honest look around the league, how many teams can make the claim that they have their franchise quarterback for the next 10 years? 

   

  Of the 30 franchises there are only a handful of teams that can make the claim. The Bucs and Packers cannot despite having two of the best quarterbacks in the history of the game because there’s no way either of those guys play for another 10 years. Teams like the Chiefs, Chargers, Cardinals, Bengals, Bills and Ravens certainly feel like they have their guy for the next 10 seasons but the ever-increasing salaries of quarterbacks and the ever-looming threat of injury leaves questions about their long-term sustainability. Every other team is trying to figure it out. They either have a young quarterback they hope is the guy, a guy they believe (correctly or not) they may be able to upgrade from, or a guy they need to replace ASAP.

   

  Then there’s the impatience of NFL fan bases and front offices. The more impatient the fan base, the more impatient the owner. After all the goal is to make money and a happy fan base is one that spends. What other type of fan base spends money? A hopeful one! So the NFL has become this revolving door of quarterbacks who fans hope are the franchise until they are not, and the team replaces them for the next hopeful. Organizations like the Broncos, Rams, Raiders, and Washington have been using this model for years to keep fans on the edge of their seats with their hands in their pockets trying to support whomever the new hope would be.

   

  Outside of a few teams, coaches turn over every few seasons. So, most of the time they don’t outlive the proving ground for a potential franchise quarterback which also stunts the quarterback’s growth. Jameis Winston had 3 head coaches and four offensive coordinators in his five seasons with Tampa Bay before they decided to give up on him when Tom Brady chose the Bucs. Justin Herbert is going to throw more touchdowns this year in LA with a new coaching staff in just his second season but he’s also going to turn the ball over far more. These coaches are essentially being asked to groom a young quarterback for their replacement coach. I don’t think that is what former LA Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn had in mind when he decided to take their lumps with a rookie Herbert who compiled a lot of statistics but they didn’t equal wins. It begs the question that fans and coaches alike should ask regularly.

   

  

   

  “Who cares if he’s the quarterback of the future; does he give me the best chance to win now?”

   

  If this question was asked more often than a lot of fan bases would be happy because their team would be winning more. The coaches would not be worried about sacrificing wins for development which would lead to more job security. We would also really know who the best coaches were based on how they developed game plans to utilize the quarterbacks who gave them the best chance to win. Winning should be the great deodorizer but in the NFL a quarterback’s ability to be the “face of the franchise” seems to be just as important as their on-field ability. This is why players like Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts continue to be doubted as franchise quarterbacks while people still hold out hope for Sam Darnold and think Tayson Hill just needs a consistent opportunity to play the position to be successful. Jackson and to a lesser extent Hurts do not have the requisite look of a franchise QB. For others like Tyrod Taylor, Teddy Bridgewater, Baker Mayfield, Ryan Tannehill and Jacoby Brissett they don’t put up the flashy numbers that make fans swoon but when healthy, they can run an offense well and usually keep their team in a game. There’s value in those abilities as well and a ton of talented players like that in college who get overlooked for some project who has the look.

   

  Two seasons ago quarterback Tyler Huntley was a Pac-12 first team selection in his senior season. He was named a third team All American. Yet when the 2020 draft rolled around he was not invited to the combine and was not selected in the draft. He had to sit and watch a quarterback he outplayed in the Pac-12 (Herbert) go top 10 and a bunch of other names that he undoubtedly never heard of be drafted while he waited for an undrafted free agent offer from Baltimore who already had three quarterbacks on the roster. In the three games where he has received significant playing time, he has performed like a starting quarterback in the NFL but this offseason, even if another team brings him in, you will hear people say things like they say about Hurts, “He’s capable but the team still needs to draft a franchise quarterback.” 

   

  So much draft capital has been wasted on quarterbacks who are not playing. In San Francisco the 49ers have a championship caliber team. They have a quarterback who is a liability in the biggest moments. Instead of upgrading the position this season, they decided to take a quarterback in Trey Lance that they have no intention of playing. They could have used that top five draft pick to bring in other talent that could make life easier on the quarterback that they chose to stick with. They were knocking on the door just a few years ago and Garropolo was the reason they did not bring home the trophy. So why not bring in someone who could possibly take him out of the equation either because you don’t need much from him or you have upgraded from him. It feels like it has already come back to bite them. Especially with how tight the playoff race is this season in the NFC. 

   

  Is a franchise quarterback, a franchise quarterback if he is not winning games? What about if he is not playing? Do statistics make a player a franchise quarterback? Or should the attributes that make a quarterback “franchise” worthy be based on how they fit within the framework of a particular team’s scheme? Philadelphia or Baltimore may not break any passing records, but they sure do seem difficult to beat when Hurts and Jackson are behind center. Both teams were also smart enough to put backups in place that allowed them the chance to have success even if the starter is out. That’s proper planning. Because not every team gets lucky enough to get Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson and Tom Brady. The rest just need to focus on winning games the best way possible.

   

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  Gene Clemons is a Sports Analyst and Contributor to CWN Sports. His weekly column and podcast - Gene Therapy focuses on Sports, Politics and Social/Urban issues.

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• Gene Therapy: Against The Grain

  Dec 17, 2021 Gene Clemons 1 Comments

  

   

  by Gene Clemons

   

  With a stroke of a pen, the college recruiting landscape was flipped on its head during the early signing period. Consensus number one overall player Travis Hunter decided to take his talents to…….Jackson Mississippi? That’s right! The 6’1” 160-pound cornerback shunned the advances of Alabama, Georgia, Clemson, and every other major Power Five player in college football. On signing day, the Collins Hill High School product turned his back on his long time commitment to Florida State and at his ceremony flung the FSU hat off the table, caught the Jackson State “J” hat flying at him from off stage and revealed the “I believe” tee that he was wearing underneath his jacket. 

   

  It was a banner day for Hunter who stole the entire day. It was another step for Coach Prime to show that what they were doing in the spring was not a fluke but in fact a new normal and a warning to the establishment that they and subsequently other HBCU programs would have to be respected as a legit factor in recruiting. It was celebrated by countless people who considered it a win for all HBCU’s and a win for the culture. But any time you upset the “natural order” the ugly never takes long to appear. The negative shots always start subtle and then crescendos to blatant full-fledged disrespect. 

   

  The first slight came when ESPN announced him as the second ranked player in the country. It's not that various scouting services are always aligned but when the news announces something it is usually based on the consensus. Whether it was done purposefully to lessen the magnitude of the moment or not, we will never know but it was not lost on people who followed the timeline of the announcement. 

   

  The second came with backlash from Florida State fans who declared Deion Sanders public enemy number one and denounced him as a true Seminole. "How could he do this to us?" Was a familiar phrase posted among the social media posts. The Twitter space titled "Fire Mike Norvell" flooded with people who believed there must be something wrong with the 'Noles coach if he is losing recruits to an HBCU.

   

  The disrespect continued to go deeper. The rumors that a significant corporate involvement by Barstool Sports in conjunction with Coach Prime funded an NIL deal that lured Hunter away from FSU or the other P5 suitors and delivered him to Jackson State. People commenting that Hunter will be in the transfer portal next season and that Coach Prime bought Hunter permeated throughout social media and on mainstream media debate platforms. It reached a climax when radio personality and former college basketball player Doug Gottlieb compared choosing a top FCS HBCU over a P5 school to choosing a Jewish D3 school over a P5. He also said that the decision was an obvious mistake. 

   

  The question becomes why? Why is it a mistake? Let’s examine some reasons people lay out and debunk these baseless premises. 

   

  There’s more exposure at a P5. False

   

  This is usually the first point that the uninformed make. Exposure is relative to talent. Many of these top talents don’t need a college to provide exposure anymore. They do it themselves. Many of the top recruits in college athletics have thousands upon thousands of followers. It could be argued that they help the needle move at the school they attend. This is a dilapidated way of thinking that predates the social exposure world we live in now. In this particular case, no school, including the P5 best teams, received more exposure than Jackson State since the arrival of Coach Prime. 

   

  You have a chance to play in front of large crowds full of adoring fans. True but…

   

  Have you ever been in a packed stadium of 50,000 and a packed stadium of 90,000? Both create a seemingly deafening sound. Both are electric. But the opportunity to play in front of a packed stadium full of faces that don’t look like you will never trump the feeling of a packed stadium full of people who look like your mother and father or could be a cousin. Do the fans at Florida State love you, or do they love what you can do for their team. The fans at an HBCU rock with you and want to see you succeed because they feel like when you succeed, they succeed. That feeling can not be usurped by a few thousand more people in the stands. 

   

  The education is better. False

   

  This is one of the most infuriating lies that many of these schools tell. Very similar to the lies that private schools tell players in high school, the idea that your education is better because it might cost more money is preposterous. HBCU’s have been recruiting and producing some of the best and brightest in all fields for many decades. They have done that for many years while being denied the same federal and state funding as their PWI contemporaries. It has long been preached that when you are black you have to work twice as hard to make the same mark in the world so HBCU’s prepare their students for the rigors of being black in a world that is already difficult. When they emerge, they are usually well versed in their field and ready to conquer the world. Which is why there are so many alumni doing well for themselves. 

   

  The coaching is better. False

   

  We have all heard the saying, “It’s not the X’s and O’s, it’s the Jimmys and Joes.” We make coaching important whenever we want to make the argument but in college normally it comes down to who can recruit better. It is no coincidence that when PWI’s were not accepting black players, HBCUs fielded mighty teams. Segregation saw these same school pilfer talent like a midnight raid at an auction house. They left HBCU’s to fight for talent that used to routinely populate their rosters. The coaching did not improve, the players did. But for the sake of argument in this case Hunter is a defensive back. He gets an opportunity to be mentored and taught by the greatest defensive back of all time who happens to be a meticulous student of the game and tireless worker. No other school on the planet can offer him that level of coaching. 
  

   

  Why would these P5 schools spend millions of dollars just on recruiting budgets every year if they were not setting up the opportunity to make that money back 100-fold? The recruiting budgets of programs like Alabama and Georgia hover around three million per year but the amount of money they generate is in the 100 million range. Their care for the player is based on the ability to continue to generate that type of money. How disastrous would it be for the P5 if all of these top recruits decided to follow Hunter to HBCU’s? The endorsement dollars and television rights deals follow the talent so don’t expect these schools to take this move by Jackson State lightly. They will hit back. They have already planned their smear campaign if things don’t work out. They will conveniently forget what just happened at Ohio State where a quarterback went to the school to get his million dollar NIL deal and the next season he was in the transfer portal. They will forget BYU brokering a deal to pay the tuition of all of their walk-ons essentially giving the team unlimited scholarships. They will overlook the NIL deal that Texas brokered for ever offensive linemen who attended the school in Austin. 

   

  The truth is they have no choice but to fight. They can’t afford to lose these assets, they can’t imagine life where they actually need to develop players and be patient with the process of building a team when you can’t infuse it with the best players in the country year after year. Congratulations to Travis Hunter for going against the grain. You can believe he will not be the last one.

   

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  Gene Clemons is a Sports Analyst and Contributor to CWN Sports. His weekly column and podcast - Gene Therapy focuses on Sports, Politics and Social/Urban issues.

   

   

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• Gene Therapy: Time For HBCU Football to Bump Up!

  Dec 11, 2021 Gene Clemons 0 Comments

  

   

  by Gene Clemons

   

  Every season when we arrive at the postseason for college football, the lack of representation for HBCU’s is staggering. Yes, the Celebration Bowl exists but that only spotlights two teams. This season the SWAC was “fortunate” enough to get a representative in the FCS Playoff. Florida A&M was a top 25 team and because of the way the first round is set up, not only did they have to go on the road, they were given a difficult first round opponent because of proximity. Meanwhile Holy Cross and Sacred Heart were able to play each other and neither one of them were ranked. The disrespect for HBCU programs in the FCS Playoffs is a yearly tradition which sparked the creation of the Celebration Bowl but it is just not enough. There's not enough exposure and nowhere near enough revenue generated through sponsorships and television rights. 

  At the Division 2 level it is even worse because there are no automatic bids. So the CIAA and the SIAC have been consistently squeezed out of playoff slots. This year Savannah State had a great season and didn't get a bid to the postseason. Albany State and Bowie State were the only representatives from HBCU's and they were both put against D2 playoff staples.

  Without much in the way of postseason representation how do these teams get to prove their mettle when the most eyes are on them? Recruiting the best and brightest has been a mission that Coach Prime has rejuvenated and we can already see the results rippling throughout the landscape. But regardless of what is said, how can you tell a student to turn down a scholarship to Ole Miss or Miss State to go to Jackson State. It is hard enough to get them to choose the Tigers over Southern Miss. At the end of the day the SWAC and MEAC both are FCS conferences and therefore considered lower than FBS programs. So that is always the trump card FBS teams play when recruiting the best. At the lower level they use playoff berths to out recruit HBCU programs. Because they can not attract the best talent the teams lose and then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and it is all recycled and used to continually paint HBCU programs in a negative light. 

  So what happens when a team begins to win? You would think everything would open up for them but unfortunately the preconceptions still exist and it is almost impossible to shake unless you do something to shake it. You have seen in recent years HBCU programs leave HBCU conferences with the belief that inclusion would allow them to further thrive but it has not taken shape. Storied programs like Tennessee State, Hampton and North Carolina A&T are treated as if they don’t belong in their new conferences.

  For years despite the product on the field fans have flocked to HBCU games. The pageantry that is supposed to surround college football is alive and well at HBCU’ s everywhere. The attendance numbers at many HBCU games rival or even eclipse those of teams in the Group of Five at the FBS level. The pageantry and fanfare at programs like Grambling, Southern, FAMU, Jackson State, Alabama State and so many more can make a tailgating situation outside of your favorite G5 school look like a mere picnic. After all, HBCU games are not just limited to the game itself. It is the night before and the night after. It is a true weekend experience when you talk about the football season at an HBCU. So why should the SWAC as the number one conference in attendance in the FCS subject itself to the Orphan Annie treatment at the hands of a lesser level. It is time to bump up and while doing so create a system that dramatically closes the gap between the FBS PWI and the new FBS HBCU’s.

  So how would it work? The college football landscape is changing and now is the time to jump up. It's not like the FBS is full of traditional historic conferences. Many have only been around for a short time so adding another conference would not hurt. Especially when that new conference would bring in attendance numbers better than the MAC. The SWAC has the most teams ready to jump to the FBS based on the teams that we've seen make the move recently. The conference would take a contingency of teams from all of the HBCUs and create a super conference of 16 teams divided into two divisions.

  The new FBS SWAC would be: Jackson St, Alabama St, Alabama A&M, Grambling, Southern, Alcorn St, Arkansas Pine Bluff, Texas Southern, Prairie View A&M, Florida A&M, Tennessee St, Hampton, North Carolina A&T, South Carolina St, Morgan State, and Delaware State.

   The new FCS MEAC would include: Bethune Cookman, Mississippi Valley State, North Carolina Central, Howard, Norfolk State, Savannah State, Fort Valley State, Albany State, Morehouse, Miles, Kentucky State, Lane, Bowie State, Fayetteville State, Virginia Union, Virginia State.

   The new SWAC as a FBS to schedule a Power Five conference team and not cost them strength of schedule because they played an FCS school. That would allow these HBCU’s to still take guaranteed pay games.. They could then schedule a FCS from the new MEAC and guarantee them a payoff that would help their bottom line. The FCS teams could do the same if they scheduled the remaining D2 schools for a pay game. It would allow every team to increase their revenue and demand a place at the table of the level they are at. It is a "for us by us" philosophy that may never come to fruition. People should ask themselves why it doesn't make sense when we consider that three teams who do not draw nearly as well as some HBCU squads are about to ascend to the FBS with nothing more than hope. 

  The time is now for HBCU teams. They are raising the bar with coaches who move the needle. Coach Prime has paved the way for Eddie George and Hue Jackson to join the ranks. They have shed light on the other talented coaches already at HBCU programs and that has helped to increase the talent pool attending those schools but that only scratches the surface. They have already begun to position themselves by galvanizing a strong conference. They should not let the train pass them by. 

   

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  Gene Clemons is a Sports Analyst and Contributor to CWN Sports. His weekly column and podcast - Gene Therapy focuses on Sports, Politics and Social/Urban issues.

   

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