Rodell Rahmaan has seen enough man-on-the-street interviews on social media to know he wants to do one. He’d love for a stranger with a camera to ask him the most famous person on his phone.
“I can’t wait,” Rahmaan said, “to tell them it’s Eddie George.”
The 1995 Heisman Trophy winner is in Rahmaan’s contacts list because of George’s second football life as the head coach at Tennessee State. Players at Norfolk State and Delaware State can relate after their programs hired Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson, respectively, this winter.
The trio entered those jobs with a combined 11 Pro Bowl appearances … and one season of coaching: Jackson’s eight-month stint as a high school assistant.
George, Vick and Jackson aren’t the only high-profile NFL alumni strolling college sidelines. Hall of Fame player Deion Sanders electrified Jackson State, then Colorado. Super Bowl-winning quarterback Trent Dilfer is trying to turn around his tenure at UAB. Another Super Bowl champion, Terrell Buckley, is a few weeks into his new job leading Mississippi Valley State.
But the depth of their experience differs. Sanders coached in Texas high schools and worked with top recruits at the Under Armour All-America Game before taking over his first college program. Dilfer spent four years as head coach at a Tennessee high school and tutored top quarterback prospects in the Elite 11 camp series. Buckley’s resume includes a decade as a position coach at programs like Ole Miss and Louisville plus a year as the head coach of the XFL’s Orlando Guardians.
In a profession where coaches grind for years to climb the ladder, George skipped a few rungs when Tennessee State hired him in April 2021. Jackson and Vick did the same. Is the trend a reflection of the growing importance of money and celebrity in college football’s new era? Schools treating a marquee position as an entry-level job? Or merely Football Championship Subdivision programs with fewer resources and little to lose thinking outside the box?
