Why has there been no progress in the last decade?

Worse.

Why has there been regression?

Why are some conferences like the Pac 12, where five head coaches were African American at the start of the season, successfully diversifying?

But most others are not.

Of the 65 power five programs, only eight have black head coaches in the 10 team Big 12.

There are no black head coaches in the 14 team sec, where 61% of the players or black there are also now no black head coaches.

Not after Vanderbilt fired Derek Mason last month.

It seems that those numbers have declined, and and so part of our task will be to figure out why and then come up with solutions to trying toe.

See if we can fix it.

Maryland head coach Mike Locksley is the founder of the National Coalition of Minority Football Coaches.

Way wanna do a great job of finding and then vetting minority candidates that have the ability to be successful at the head coaching positions at all levels?

Locksley strategy focuses on championing young coaches of color who can rise up through the college and NFL ranks through graduate assistants to position coaches.

Two coordinators to head coaches.

The dearth of African American coordinators is especially problematic.

This'd year there were fewer than a dozen black offensive coordinators in FBS, perpetuating a seemingly endless cycle of exclusion.

For more on this subject.

We're joined now by our old friend, the former head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs and the New York Jets and now the head coach at Arizona State.

Herm Edwards.

Herm, thank you for being with us.

Thank you, Jeremy.

Home.

We've talked about this in the past.

What's going on here?

Well, I've always said this, Um, in life, you have, ah, social circle that you draw to when you when you try to gather information.

Uh, and that's just everyone and walks of life.

And I think when you think about the hiring process in football, whether it be in professional football for college football, who is in that social circle of influence, who are the people you reach out to?

And if that social circle seems to be people that all look alike?

Ah, lot of the information you gather is coming from the same from the same sources.

And with that being said, Um, whether you like it or not, you don't get into depth of really a hiring process that that kind of spans the whole What I say Arena.

I think another factor in this is that when you look at a lot of the hiring in today, even in pro football and well, it's college football.

Ah, lot of guys get hired.

His head coaches, um, with this in mind, does he have the ability to touch the quarterback?

Or is the on the offensive side of the ball?

And when you look at that right, whether it's in college or pro, there's that that many people off color that are coaching the quarterback position or or or offensive coordinators.

So that's the problem.

Yeah, That's one of the objectives that Mike Locksley, the head coach of Maryland, has with the National coalition of Minority Coaches promoting championing especially young African American coaches on the offensive side of the ball off the ball.

So So what do we do?

What needs to be done for this?

To change her well, like anything else, you have to get young men in your pipeline.

They start in college, love the graduate assistance Onda, work their way up the ladder and put them in position eventually, where they could be in position, where they're a quarterback, coach or an offensive coordinator.

So you can groom them in a way that they have the ability to touch the quarterback.

Because most people now are offensive driven and they want to know.

Can you fix the quarterback?

Can you run on offense?

Can you score points?

I mean, when When?

When you look at what you when you just look at a lot of the hirings, I mean, whether it's a college pro, how Maney defensive coaches are there that are head coaches, not many in her.

Just this morning, right?

You're in Arizona State, Arizona.

The news coming this morning, Adam Schefter reporting, among others, that Jed Fish, the quarterbacks coach for the Patriots being hired at Arizona, replacing Kevin Sumlin.

And I should say, Jed Fish is white.

Well, and you know he's on.

He's on the offensive side of the board.

If you look at our conference, our Congress has done a pretty good job.

Diversity as far as he had coaches.

But when you really look at it, um, there's 12.

There's 12 jobs here in the Pac 12, and I want to say four of them are defensive coaches, and the rest of our offensive minded coach is nothing wrong with that.

I think, Jeremy, for me, this is what I've learned, Um, being groomed as a head coach under Tony Dungy that the head coaching position is not a position.

Whether you're an offensive defense, you're the leader of the team.

You coach everybody, and I think sometimes we lose sight of that.

You know, the head coach is the leader.

He has to leave the offense to defense and special teams as well as the players.

It shouldn't really matter what side of the ball you coach.

What should matter is, is he a leader of men?

Does he have a vision for this program?

To me, that's more important than what side of volume coach, and I think sometimes that gets lost in the interview process.

Herm.

Over the course of the next several weeks, athletic directors, college presidents, search committees, they're going to be making decisions about Haier's.

What is your message to them?

about increasing diversity as they think about the next offensive.

Korea.

Defense of Korea head coach hired that they made, I would tell him this.

Look at the team and the players who are on the team, and what do they look like?

That's very important.

What do they look like?

What is the makeup of your football team?

And who is gonna be the best man to make sure that those players become the best version of themselves?

That's important.

Thanks for watching ESPN on YouTube for live streaming sports and premium content.

Subscribe to ESPN plus.