When the 2025-26 NFL season began, there were 23 HBCU players on the rosters of 32 teams — less than one per team on average. That number grows to 26 when you include players who transferred from an HBCU and were then drafted.
Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter, who relocated from Jackson State University to Colorado with head coach Deion Sanders, are on that list.
By contrast, the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs had 12 HBCU players on their Super Bowl-winning roster. There were only 26 combined teams in the NFL and AFL that year, the final season before the league’s merger.
Offensive tackle Carson Vinson, who played at Alabama A&M, was the only true HBCU player selected in the 2025 NFL draft. He was a fifth-round pick of the Baltimore Ravens.
No HBCU players were drafted in 2024, and the average number of HBCU players selected in the draft dating back to 2022 is one.
Keep in mind there were college football powers that remained segregated until later in the 1970s, and many schools limited the number of Black players. That institutional athletic racism guaranteed that some of the nation’s best football players attended HBCU schools.
Regardless, today’s HBCU programs still have outstanding talent, yet rating services and NFL scouts often bypass these players.
The NFL isn’t purposely ignoring HBCU players — at least not publicly. It has embraced the Allstate HBCU Legacy Bowl, which features top NFL draft-eligible players from HBCUs.
The teams, carrying the names of late Florida A&M coach Jake Gaither and Grambling coach Eddie Robinson, put on a dazzling display Feb. 21 in the 5th Annual Legacy Bowl at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.
Team Gaither prevailed 27-23 over Team Robinson live on NFL Network, and both teams topped their highest point totals in the game’s history.
Doug Williams, the first Black quarterback to start and win the Super Bowl, is co-founder of the Black College Football Hall of Fame and the HBCU Legacy Bowl. He told NFL Network reporter Sheree Burruss the contest “is all about an opportunity.”
“(The game is) a chance to be seen and give (HBCU players) an opportunity to go out there and perform. If you do that, that’s all people ask for,” Williams said.
Winston-Salem running back JaQuan Kelly was named the game’s Offensive MVP after rushing for 76 yards on 10 carries and two touchdowns for Team Gaither.
“What I took from this right here was opportunity,” Kelly said following the game. “I knew I wasn’t like the top dude in their lists and all that, but now I am. I’m coming.”
Defensive end Michael Lunz II of South Carolina State, the game’s Defensive MVP, recorded 1.5 sacks and two tackles and consistently pressured Team Robinson’s backfield.
When asked what he hopes he proved in the game, Lunz said, “That I can play football. That’s it.”
The HBCU showcase has also paid dividends. While undrafted, 2023 Legacy Bowl Offensive MVP Xavier Smith signed with the Los Angeles Rams, and the wide receiver and return specialist has played in 31 games over the past two seasons.
The days of NFL teams having double-digit HBCU players have passed, but the total number could — and should — climb.
The Reid Roundup
Two Black women are returning from the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics with gold medals…Laila Edwards scored two goals for the U.S. women’s hockey team and played a pivotal role as a key defenseman as her squad went undefeated and topped Canada in overtime to claim the gold medal…In one of the most inspirational stories of the Winter Olympics, Black American Elana Meyers Taylor finally won a gold medal in the women’s monobob bobsled event. The 41-year-old Taylor had won respective bronze and silver medals at every Winter Games since 2010 in Vancouver, yet gold had eluded her — until Monday, Feb. 16. “This is definitely the top, not only the Olympic champion, but to be able to do this with both my kids; like it’s just incredible,” said Taylor, the oldest American to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympic Games.