The race to find the next Deion Sanders is heating up at HBCUs

This is For The Win’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Did a friend recommend or forward this to you? If so, subscribe here. Have feedback? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey! Now, here’s Mike Sykes.

Good morning, Winners! Welcome to the Morning Win. Thanks so much for rocking with us today. Appreciate you. Hope you’re having a great Friday and have a nice weekend planned for yourself.

Former NFL wide receiver Desean Jackson is reportedly nearing a deal to become the head football coach at Delaware State University, according to reporting from ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

I’m sorry — but I’ve got to be honest here. That’s one of those sentences I never even considered I’d think I’d have to type someday. Yet, here we are. The former Eagles speedster is on the brink of becoming a head coach at a historically Black university.

This is all a product of the Coach Prime formula, which worked wonders for Jackson State’s football program and, after initial growing pains, is now thriving in Colorado.

The formula is relatively simple: Find a former NFLer who has built up a brand around themselves and use that brand to recruit the best of the best talent available to you in this new NIL era. It’s a win-win scenario. The program can sell recruits on being coached by the NFL stars of yesteryear, which, at the very least, helps the program sell players a potential NFL future if all breaks right. That opens up the potential for a talent pipeline these schools typically haven’t had access to. For these new coaches, it’s a new job and a new opportunity — even if it’s not necessarily starting with the most prominent programs.

This move is catching on. Not just with Jackson but with other big names, too. Eddie George Jr. at Tennessee State. Michael Vick at Norfolk State. Cris Dishman at Texas Southern. The Coach Prime plan is a trend now.

Ultimately, I think it’s a good trend. But I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t have room for disaster.

HBCUs have become a stepping stone into coaching for former players looking to cut their teeth somewhere. That’s all fine and well until the HBCU is only seen as a stepping stone. Then, it’s a problem. 

Look, I get it. These jobs are low-risk, high-reward propositions. You do well, everyone will praise you like they did for Deion when he lifted Jackson State’s football program. You do poorly and no one will really care that much because, well, let me be honest, *y’all* don’t talk about HBCUs like that anyway. Maybe you’ll get clowned like Ed Reed did for getting fired after less than a month on the job at Bethune Cookman. But just give it a year or two and no one will even remember you were there. HBCUs are typically an afterthought when it comes to football, just like they are with so many other things.

And that’s the issue at play here. While having a solid football program is great, it’s not what most HBCUs need. Hundreds of them across the country are crumbling. They’re old. They need infrastructure. They need funding.

A great football program is certainly a way to create a bit of that without relying on government resources that are harder than ever to depend on, but it’s hard to sustain that if a coach is only going to leave after just a few seasons like Sanders did at Jackson State.

Don’t get me wrong — he did do some real good for that school and that community. But if he did that in three years, imagine what he could’ve done in 10 or 15.

These aren’t my pockets we’re talking about. I can’t tell Deion Sanders to pass up a bag to go to Colorado just to do the more altruistic thing for less money and likely a bigger headache. But in an ideal world, that would’ve been awesome. It would’ve validated HBCUs as destinations instead of just a rung on the ladder to the top.

As Deseasn Jackson, Mike Vick and more of these new HBCU hires see success, they’ll be tempted away by bigger programs with bigger budgets. Instead of walking away, it’d be nice to see them stick around for a while.

I’d say I’m rooting for their success — and I am — but that’s not all. More than anything else, I hope they leave these HBCUs in a better place than they found them when things are all said and done.

The numbers are in…

Since everyone can’t help themselves and continue talking about ratings, we can do it one last time here.

The Christmas Day numbers are back in, and things went about as expected. Here’s the data, according to ESPN

• The NFL’s games reportedly had 65 million viewers on Netflix with the Ravens vs. Texans game averaging 24.3 million and the Chiefs vs. Steelers averaging 24.1 million.
• The NBA’s ratings number was dwarfed by that, with the league averaging 5.25 million viewers per game across its five-game Christmas Day slate.

That’s how the numbers were expected to bear out. Whenever the NFL goes up against something, it always wins, usually by a huge margin. However, the fact that the NBA saw a reported 83 percent jump in its ratings, per Nielsen, is a great sign that, contrary to what some will tell you, the league is not fading into the ether.

The NBA is doing pretty well for itself. Probably a lot better than you think comparatively, considering Netflix’s tendency to blatantly lie about its streaming figures. But that’s another conversation for another day.

That shouldn’t be a revelation, considering that this is the same NBA that just signed an 11-year, $76 billion TV deal. But it’s 2024 and people like to argue about pointless things on the internet. It is what it is.

The Bears are breaking Caleb Williams

Maybe they should’ve benched him for Tyson Bagnet just to protect him from getting pummeled every week. That’s how bad this Chicago team is right now.

Here’s Cory Woodroof with more:

“Williams is not exempt from rookie woes, but the amount of sacks he has taken this season so far (67!!!) is beyond unacceptable for the Bears. In fact, it is an embarrassment for a franchise that has been gifted a truly special talent at quarterback. That staggering number does not even include the times Williams has been hit by a defender but still able to get the ball out.”

Now, before I say this, let me just say that Caleb Williams is an elite talent and we’ve seen that showcased before on multiple occasions this season.

But, guys. We’re hitting David Carr territory. Williams is 9 sacks away from Carr’s record 76 sacks taken in a season. That’s not good. That completely ruined Carr, and he was nowhere near as talented as Williams is now.

Let’s hope this doesn’t do the same for the Bears’ QB.

Photo Friday: There’s no chance this wasn’t going to be a Beyoncé picture

Shoutout to the Beyoncé and Mike Breen collab at the Beyoncé Bowl. Love to see this.

Quick hits: Jim Larrañaga is out … The fake Tush Push is in … and more

— Bryan Kalbrosky has more on Jim Larrañaga’s sudden departure at Miami and more on his replacement here.

— Rutgers’ fake Tush Push is kind of cool. Here’s Cory with more.

— Thomas Brown’s tenure in Chicago is going great so far! Sike. Here’s Meg Hall with more on this absolute disaster.

— Get in, Losers. We’re drafting flavors for the Pop-Tarts bowl.

— Absolutely love this fit for Simone Biles. Caroline Darney has more on it here.

— Christian D’Andrea drank Snoop Dogg’s Gin & Juice cocktail for his Arizona Bowl. Here’s his review.

That’s a wrap, folks! Thanks so much for reading today. Appreciate you. Happy holidays! Peace.

-Sykes