[polkaface]

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To continue with the cream rising to the top metaphor, I think that's more likely to happen in the NFL than college. The people making the personnel decisions in the NFL are usually the front office higher-ups/ owner/ whoever. These guys are trying to keep their jobs and make money. The best way to do this is to win football games, so the teams are more likely to hire coaches that give the team the best chance of winning, regardless of race.

For college teams, the people making the personnel decisions are very much answerable to the university's boosters (much more so than NFL front office people are to their team's fans). The people doing the hiring for a college team are more likely to be swayed by the booster's interests in maintaining a particular image for the team. I don't know any college football boosters, but I would imagine that they're generally rich old white men, who don't have the best reputation for giving a chance to the black man.

I think that this disparity between NFL and CFB is shown by the fact that there are at least 6 (off the top of my head) black NFL coaches out of 32 teams, and like 4 or 5 or something like that in CFB out of 100something teams.

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This is way off. Boosters do want to "maintaint a particular image" and that image is WINNING. Even in the deep south, these guys might be racists, but they're looking at this as hiring an EMPLOYEE. And they don't mind having a black guy work for them. They might be homophobes too, but if it means winning a SEC championship they'd not only HIRE a black guy but KISS him in front of a packed stadium of fans.

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I disagree. If that's the case then you are saying it's the AD at almost each and every school that is the one stopping the process. Teams want to win and they want to win their way.

Boosters have a big influence in the hiring of coaches at many schools. After all it is their money that will be paying the salaries, and it is their money that this new coach is going to be calling them personally and asking them for.

AD's need 2 things. 1. They need wins (to keep alumni happy) and 2. they need money to be raised. A lot of people can do # 1. It's #2 that keeps ADs awake at night and keeps boosters on speed dial.