James Franklin, Marcus Freeman set to make college football history, more to come

Coach Black will lead the team to the FBS national championship game for the first time this season. It’s a guarantee, something unknown to Black men across the country seeking opportunities to achieve what Marcus Freeman did at age 35 and James Franklin at age 42: become a head coach in an FBS program.

In 2019, Franklin, who has coached at Penn State for ten years now, told HBO 24/7 that he wants to achieve what no one else has since the sport designated the national championship game as the best way to crown a top college team. football.

“I don’t often talk about this, but I want to be the first African-American football coach to win a[n] [FBS] national championship.”

Franklin was only 12 years old when John Thompson became the first Black coach to lead a men’s basketball team to a Division I national title in 1984 at Georgetown. That was 41 years ago – long enough that Freeman, or I, could not see it.

Franklin recalled what the game looked like when Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith became the first black coaches to lead teams to the Super Bowl in 2007. At the time, Franklin was coordinating Ron Prince’s offense at Kansas State, one of only six. Black head coaches in college football at that time. He remembers what that meant to him and his players, knowing not just the number, but each name: Sylvester Croom at Mississippi State, Turner Gill at Buffalo, Karl Dorrell at UCLA, Randy Shannon at Miami and Tyrone Willingham. was at Notre Dame – of 127 FBS head coaches.

Freeman was hired by Notre Dame 19 years after Willingham was in South Bend.

“It’s a reminder that you are a representative of many others and many of our players who look the same as me,” said Freeman. “Your color shouldn’t matter. The proof of your work should. But it takes everyone.”

The Prince Kansas State staff also featured current Atlanta Falcons coach Raheem Morris, who is the godfather of Franklin’s daughter, Shola. And, like Prince, Franklin ended up as a head coach at the Division I level when he accepted the job at Vanderbilt in 2011, and was named head coach at Penn State in 2014.

As it stands today, Vanderbilt (Franklin, Derek Mason), Stanford (Dennis Green, Willingham), Northwestern (Green, Francis Peay) and Colorado (Mel Tucker, Karl Dorrell, Deion Sanders) are the only programs to hire returning Black coaches. – going backwards. Colorado is the only program to accomplish that feat three times in a row.

However, the SEC does not include a single Black head coach among its 16 teams and had never had a Black head coach before 2004, when Croom took over at Mississippi State. Among the six programs to win a national title during the College Football Playoff — Michigan, Georgia, Alabama, LSU, Clemson and Ohio State — only one has hired a Black coach in its history, and Michigan did so for the first time in 2024, naming Sherrone Moore as the school’s head football coach. the 21st.

When more than half of the players in Division I college football are Black and only 16 of 134 FBS coaches are, Croom knows there is a lot of work to be done.

“No, there is not enough progress,” Croom told The Associated Press in 2022. “It’s been almost 20 years now, and the fact that we still have to have these discussions is disappointing, and it’s worrying. But at the same time, we still have to shed light on the situation as it is and find ways to change it because there are many good people who are deprived of opportunities to train and lead and motivate other people.

“We want to find the best people. … And doors shouldn’t be closed to them just because of the color of their skin.”

The ACC has only two Black football coaches in Syracuse’s Fran Brown and Virginia’s Tony Elliott. The Big Ten fielded five in 2024 and expanded to four in 2025: Franklin, Moore, Maryland coach Mike Locksley and UCLA coach DeShaun Foster. The Big 12 is putting one on Sanders.

Franklin, whose mother is of white British descent and whose father is black, is well aware of the moment ahead of him and his Orange Bowl teammate, Freeman, whose mother is of South Korean descent and whose father is black. You know this game, with two men as head coaches leading two blue-blood programs in the CFP semifinals, is a moment many will reflect on and use to make decisions about future recruiting practices.

“At the end of the day, you know, does this create opportunities for more guys to get in front of sports directors? Does this create more opportunities for search firms? I hope so,” said Franklin. “I think at the end of the day, you just want an opportunity and you want to be able to earn it through your work and your actions. So we’ll see.

“I’m very proud of it. I think you guys know there are conversations that I kept private for a long time. But you know I’m proud of it. I’m honored. I’m honored to be able to compete with Marcus. I’m honored to be able to compete with Notre Dame.”

History shows that the number of football coaches in Zimnyama will continue to increase. Since 2007, the sport has grown from seven Black coaches in the FBS to 16 – a huge increase. Until the percentage of players equals the coaches, we will still see work to be done. And every payment, every obstacle, every first is important and will be important. My grandmother, Peggy Jean Connor, taught me that.

He sued the state of Mississippi for voting rights, and won. He stood with Fannie Lou Hamer as she famously questioned America at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. He was secretary-treasurer of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and his name is recorded in the marriage records of the Forrest County, Mississippi courthouse in the “colored” section.

I started at FOX Sports two years after he passed, but before he told me that he was sure that I would do so much to make him proud, that I would not waste the good work that he and many others had done to cut the path. and made the way for us to be where we are today.

I represent. Franklin represents. Must be Freeman.

Forgive me while I burst into tears for them, as we will see history being made on Thursday night with more to come.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and commentator for FOX Sports and host of the podcast “The Number One College Football Show.” Follow him on @RJ_Omusha.

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