The Effect of Integration on LSU & HBCU Football Talent, 1964-1979

It appears as though the dwindling trend in HBCU talent was very clearly related to the integration policies of SEC football in the 1970s. Nat Northington may have played a game for Kentucky in 1967, but no significant change in trends started happening until Bear Bryant recruited John Mitchell for the fall of 1971.

From 1957 to 1974, the SEC clearly dominated the world of college football. About 40% of the SEC teams that played during this time ended the season ranked in the Top 20, which is just incredible. But as black athletes began to take on more and more of a central role on elite CFB teams, we see that the SEC struggled to keep up with its old dominance, with the exceptions of Alabama and Georgia. The SEC really didn't catch up to being its old self until Bama won its NC in 1992 and Spurrier and Fulmer got the Gators and Vols rolling with pass happy offenses.

As for the 1970s, this was an era when Ohio State, Michigan, Southern Cal, Penn State, Pitt, Oklahoma, and Nebraska really caught fire.

In the South, teams that benefitted from the shifting demographic winds of CFB included Florida State (which began heavily recruiting black football players in 1967) and Miami. Both Bobby Bowden and Howard Schnellenberger were pioneers in this respect.

One part of the integration story that is often forgotten is the huge upset win Florida A&M got over Schnellenberger's Canes in 1979.

Back in 1976, a Grambling team coached by Eddie Robinson and led by Doug Williams went on the road to take on a weak (4-6) Temple squad ( LINK only wins were against Akron, Grambling, Drake, & Dayton), and came away with a heartbreaking 31-30 loss to the Owls.

But even though Grambling had the talent, Florida A&M Rattlers were able to pull off winning 2 black college football national championships in 1977 & 1978 under legendary coach Rudy Hubbard, a former standout player at Ohio State in the 1960s under Woody Hayes. He pulled off amazing feats against non-HBCU football powers in 1978 & 1979.

As some might know, 1978 was the first year in which the NCAA split Division I into two subdivisions, I-A and I-AA, and thus, this was the first year in which there was a I-AA playoff. It was won by none other than the FAMU Rattlers. As the article on Hubbard states, FAMU played on "December 16, 1978, defeating the University of Massachusetts by the score 35-28, making Florida A&M the first and only HBCU today to have accomplished this feat." The Minutemen were a good team in 1978 too ( LINK), having lost to Rutgers 11-21 and beaten Boston College 27-0.

In a lot of ways though, FAMU's 16-13 upset over the Miami Hurricanes in 1979, Schnellenberger's first year, was even bigger. There is a good SI article on it from October 15, 1979 ( LINK). It was an unusual road game for the (5-6) Canes to schedule in 1979 (a Canes team that, for what it's worth, beat an 8-4 Penn State team 26-10 in University Park, Pennsylvania), but the Canes would get their revenge in 1980 when FAMU came to visit Miami in Coral Gables with a 49-0 shellacking.

This showed that the era of HBCU competitiveness was coming to a close, and that even in the I-AA playoffs, few HBCU would seriously contend for championships anymore. There would be an occasional great player like Jerry Rice in the 1980s, but by and large, the SWAC and the MEAC faded into relative obscurity at the bottom of the rung of the Division I hierarchy, where they remain today.

For a brief period of time, though, with the NFL Draft surge of the late 60's and early 70's, and with FAMU's great upsets in 1978 & 1979, some HBCU teams actually played some really exciting football.

First, just because I'm trying to put things in historical perspective in the order that they occurred. Second, because he is significant in being the first black athlete selected from LSU in the NFL Draft, even though he didn't play college or pro football.

In the next year, the Chargers picked Mike Williams as a CB in the first round.

EDIT: Although LSU recruited a couple of black players in 1971, I think Williams might have been the first to actually play on scholarship in 1972. I'm not really sure though.

Great post Doc! I often talk to young athletes about this when choosing a potential college to attend. This will be bookmarked.

Doc, keep posting.

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so not until 7 years after signing of the Civil Rights Bill, did LSU begin to recruit african americans student atheletes?

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Now it seems that is all they sign.

Lora Hinton

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When I was in Michigan for work recently I argured with a group of mostly Mich/Mich St. alums that intergration was the death blow to the Big Ten

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Did you mention Bubba Smith (Beaumont, TX) to the Spartan fan? Pretty sure he would have been a Longhorn.

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When I was in Michigan for work recently I argured with a group of mostly Mich/Mich St. alums that intergration was the death blow to the Big Ten.

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Interesting take, and I see your point. I'd also point out that Ole Miss' central role in the battle against integration is a large reason why their football team slid into irrelevance as the SEC integrated. Fair or unfair, Ole Miss was the media focal point of segragation, and I can't imagine how difficult is was for them to recruit black athletes in the wake of that.

It's 50 years later, and Ole Miss is STILL caught up in some degree in its segregationsit past, while most other schools have been able to move on from it. Not saying LSU's record on race relations is unblemished, but kids aren't raised on newsreel footage of it.

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When I was in Michigan for work recently I argured with a group of mostly Mich/Mich St. alums that intergration was the death blow to the Big Ten.

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Not quite a death blow, but it certainly started hurting them once the era came to a close.

You could say that very early on (as in pre-1965), certain Northern schools with good reputations for race relations, such as Syracuse or Minnesota, were able to increase their talent level beyond their normal baseline level.

Then, during a short transition era (maybe 1966 to 1976), HBCUs were able to dramatically increase their talent level.

Finally, by the 1980s, when all the dust had cleared, most Southern schools were demographically situated to start retaining some of the talented black football players at nearby high schools.

As some have mentioned, there were schools such as Ole Miss that may have still had a negative stigma attached to them, but it's hard for me to say for sure. I don't know what exactly motivates a high school kid to decide to go to a particular school in the 80's or 90's. I just know that during this time period, HBCUs declined in talent, and the SEC rose back to its old status on the top of the CFB world.

I'm not sure how capable Grambling teams from 1968 to 1972 would have been in trying to keep up with SEC competition like LSU, but it would have been interesting to see. Sadly, these games never occurred. We do know, however, that by 1976-79, HBCUs were not on the level of major CFB powers, although they could occasionally play a competitive game against a Temple, UMass, or Miami.