Two Black Coaches Have Made History in College Football Playoff

When Penn State coach James Franklin and Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman square off in Thursday's College Football Playoff semifinal, they won't just be playing for a spot in the title game. They will also be competing to make college football history.

- BY RACHEL BACHMAN AND LAINE HIGGINS

Either Franklin or Freeman will become the first Black head coach ever to contest a national championship game at the sport's top level. Over more than a century of college football before, through the four-team playoff and all those years when titles were decided by polls, no Black coach has ever won a national title.

"It's a reminder that you are a representation for many others-and many of our players that look the same way I do," Freeman said. "Your color shouldn't matter. The evidence of your work should."

The matchup between Franklin and Freeman comes more than 40 years after John Thompson became the first Black coach to win an NCAA Division-I men's basketball championship. But there are signs that it could represent a wider breakthrough.

While the major-college football coaching ranks have barely changed in more than a decade-Black coaches still make up about 12% of head coaches-recent developments in hiring have created conditions that could lead to big shifts.

The first one: The share of Black position coaches has quietly surged in recent years. In 2009, about 38% of the people responsible for coaching running backs, linebackers, and so on were Black. By 2022, that share had jumped to 57%, according to a new study by professors at the University of Massachusetts and Clemson.