Jeremy Anderson
Associate Editor
So it’s no secret that the Jackson State University Tiger football team is struggling.
Jackson State is 0-3 for the first time since 2009 and they’re just coming off of the first losing season since that same year.
Frustrations are evident and explicit on social media but I urge the JSU fan base to be patient. Building a championship program normally takes time.
Now I love Jackson State just as much as the next student or alumnus, and I also want to see our Tigers succeed, but fans must be mindful of the situation at Jackson State, and HBCUs in general.
In case anyone isn’t aware, Jackson State competes in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The FCS is the second largest division in NCAA athletics and includes all schools in the two largest HBCU conferences (the MEAC and SWAC).
FCS schools are usually much smaller in size and operate on lower budgets than schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).
Schools in the FBS include universities such as the University of Alabama, Southern Mississippi, Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi.
In the world of college sports, money matters. And FBS schools have considerably more money than FCS schools.
For example, FBS schools can afford to hand out 85 full scholarships to their athletes. In comparison, FCS schools only have 63. In order to make up the difference, many FCS schools spread their scholarships out by awarding athletes half or quarter scholarships.
FBS schools also attract the best players around the country due to the state-of-the-art facilities and vast recruiting budgets they operate on. Massive weightrooms, plush player lounges, unlimited equipment and apparel, and first-class travel methods are all assets that bigger schools enjoy that are normally not found in FCS schools.
In addition to players, top-tier FBS schools can afford to have the best football coaches in the nation because of the multi-million dollar contracts they are financially able to offer. The more money you can offer your coaches, the more stable your program will be. If no one is offering you more money than you current school, then why leave?
Often when any FCS coach has sustained success, he is offered a job at a much bigger school that pays more money than he can refuse. That coach in turn leaves his former FCS program to rebuild all over.
With these factors at hand, FCS schools go through much more transition than FBS schools. Rarely will you see any FCS school, including schools in the SWAC, be dominant for longer than maybe five years (at least since this century). This is because the quality of talent and coaching are much more fluent at lower-levels of football.
So I urge all Tiger fans, until you find a way to build a two-story, 37,000 square-foot weight room with a nutrition bar included like Alabama, or find a way to pay a coach a Nic Saban-sized contract, please keep your rude, irrational and unsupportive comments about our coaches and players to yourselves.
