NFL Hall of Famer and Jackson State head coach Deion Sanders vented his frustrations on Instagram Monday when no players from Historically Black Colleges and Universities were selected in this year’s NFL draft.
“And we have the audacity to hate on one another while our kids are neglected and rejected,” Sanders wrote in the post. “I witnessed a multitude of kids that we played against that were more than qualified to be drafted. My prayers are that this won’t ever happen again. Get yo knife out my back and fight with me not against me!”
Multiple HBCU head coaches voiced their frustrations when none of their players were one of the 259 called this past week, according to The Washington Post.
“You can go back as far as you like, from Jerry Rice to Tarik Cohen,” North Carolina A&T Coach Sam Washington told the Washington Post. “The quality of the athlete is definitely within our league. Them being seen or not being seen, it happened. For what reasons, I have not figured that part out. But the fact is that it happened.”
The draft outcome could be attributed to the pandemic either postponing some school’s football seasons to the spring or canceling them outright, which caused NFL teams to heavily invest in big-name universities that had a fall season.
Small programs across the country also had to cancel pro days and there was decreased travel from NFL scouts.
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