What a wild offseason it's been in the world of HBCU football. Six Division I HBCU football programs will have new head coaches in 2024, and among them, the head coach searches at Texas Southern University and Florida A&M University were the most chaotic. The wild goose chases in Houston and Tallahassee drew much attention as the opinions and reactions of administrators, coaches, fans, and alums got much of the focus. Yet, through it all, the stakeholders that emerged the worst off are probably the people who matter the most — the players.

Let's look at Houston to see the first head coaching fiasco.

Texas Southern officially announced it would not renew the contract of head coach Clarence McKinney on November 20 — two days after the 2023 regular season ended — after weeks of rumors. While McKinney's contract didn't expire until December 15, the Tigers could get an early start on filling its vacancy, giving Texas Southern two weeks to find a new head coach before the transfer portal opened for players around the country and a month to find a head coach before early signing day.

The Tigers didn't meet either date. Instead, an absurd game of cat-and-mouse ensued with multiple head coaching candidates. First, former Alcorn State and two-time SWAC champion head coach Fred McNair was the leading candidate before the Texas Southern Board of Regents got cold feet. Then, former Houston Texans All-Pro wide receiver Andre Johnson's name was on the table. And finally, NFL stars Ed Reed and Antonio Cromartie threw their names into the head-coaching pot. There were multiple meetings by the Board of Regents, and by the transfer portal deadline and early signing day, there was still a head coach vacancy at TSU.

Texas Southern's failure to hire a new head coach promptly hurt its players since multiple guys entered the transfer portal, including starting defensive backs Jacorey Benjamin and Nahamani Harris, starting punter Patrick Hellen, and starting quarterback Andrew Body. Now, all the players will play elsewhere in 2024 as no one had a chance to be re-recruited by a new Texas Southern head coach.

If transfer portal losses weren't enough, the Tigers only announced three early signees to the program. That starkly contrasts the eight early signees in 2022 and the six early signees in 2021. Both current and future Texas Southern players couldn't decide where to play because the Tigers didn't hire new head coach Cris Dishman until January 12.

The head coaching search in Tallahassee wasn't any better. Florida A&M got the fourth-latest start to its head coaching search of any FCS program when Willie Simmons announced on January 1 that he would be leaving for a Power 4 assistant coaching role at Duke University just weeks after leading the Rattlers to their first Celebration Bowl. That move started a 30-day clock on the transfer portal for all of Florida A&M's players.

As rumors swirled of potential candidates being hired before the enlisting of a search firm for $25,000 to help find a new head coach — an astounding 18 days after Simmons' departure — players were placed in a position of uncertainty. Some even took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to try and vouch for head coaching candidates.

All the while was the looming academic calendar that seemed to be ignored by most, even though it would impact players. Florida A&M's first day of academic classes for the spring semester started January 8, and any player unsure of his athletic future with a new head coach would be forced to decide quickly on whether to return to the Rattlers in the spring or attempt to fit in a different school's spring semester that neared after transferring.

By the time head coach James Colzie III was hired on January 27, the majority of schools around the country had already begun their spring semesters, and Florida A&M football players only had three days to decide if they wanted to remain a Rattler under a new regime, even with it being an in-house hire.

The untimely process Florida A&M went through to hire a new head coach did a disservice to its players as they tried to balance the student and the athlete parts of being a student-athlete.

Florida A&M and Texas Southern's head coaching searches are reflective of what happens when the well-being of student-athletes is ignored in head coaching searches. While we won't know if Colzie or Dishman were the suitable hires for potentially a few years, we do know in the present that the dragged out, highly-publicized, and oft-ridiculed pursuit that led to each coach's hire was unfair to players, placing them in precarious positions.