Word started to get out over the weekend: Prairie View’s first-year head football coach Tremaine Jackson is a candidate for the Birmingham, Alabama, job.
Say what?
That was the initial thought because while Jackson is definitely off to an impressive start on the Hill, the college football season is just at its halfway point, and it just seems so soon. We like Coach Jackson. We like the energy he brings, his outspokenness and how he goes about preparing his team.
It hasn’t been perfect, but it’s been fun to see how Jackson has gone about reconstructing the Panthers and turning them into a team that is expected to win. We knew last month that they should beat Grambling State. We thought they should have the edge over SWAC West power Alcorn State. And this past weekend’s showdown at Southern ended the one way it could have, and that’s with PV dominating the preseason division favorite Jaguars, 24-3.
That’s the kind of confidence and belief Jackson has built in such a short time at Prairie View. The Panthers are atop their division at 4-0 in the SWAC and 5-2 overall and definitely looking like the team Jackson promised he would have during his introductory press conference, one that will win the West, play for the SWAC Championship and then a spot in the Celebration Bowl.
Now comes the distraction.
While not denying or confirming his interest in UAB job, Jackson likes the fact that people are talking about him and Prairie View in a positive light.
“That has no bearing on what we’ve got going on,” Jackson told me Monday morning. “That’s a position you want to be in. When you are winning, you want people to talk about you. People don’t talk about losers. Nobody’s name is an article with people that’s losing. It is what it is.
“We’ve dealt with that for so long from where we were to coming here. We were on a national championship run and everybody had us going everywhere across the country. We are just a bunch of D-2 guys trying to figure this Division I thing out. That’s what everybody thinks anyway.
“I tell our players, nobody is talking about that if we are not winning. So let’s keep winning. I’m glad you brought that question up, people that are really inside of our business know that it’s not even that time yet. October ain’t that time. That’s not what’s happening with jobs on that level. So it’s not even that time. There are a lot of other guys names that came out on that deal. We’re flattered but it has no bearing on what we are trying to get done. It’s not going to be the last time that we come out on the list. Let’s just put that out there and the articles can start.”
But do we really see a PWI from the Division I level hiring a Black coach away from an HBCU? Or is this Texas Southern coach Cris Dishman putting something out there to throw the Panthers off their game so that his Tigers can make up some ground?
All jokes aside, we wonder if it’s real, not because Jackson hasn’t earned it but because this isn’t how it usually works.
Colorado came and got Deion Sanders from Jackson State a few years ago, but Coach Prime as a Pro Football Hall of Famer and recognition as the greatest cornerback to ever play the game is different.
Hell, Willie Simmons had to quit as the head coach at Florida A&M, where he had the Rattlers rolling and took a position coaching job at Duke for a year to better his chances to become the head coach at Florida International. Jackson and how he has been built could be the coach to buck the trend, whether it’s this year or somewhere in the near future.
UAB, a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) program, is in the water and Jackson is out there just swimming. There are some out there saying it’s too soon. There hasn’t been enough time to know what kind of program Jackson can build at the FCS level.
UAB, a member of the American Athletic Conference, isn’t what you call a great job, but success there opens the door to a Power 4 program and all the bells and trappings. Don’t believe any coach who says those things aren’t at the heart of his ambition.
A trusted UAB insider confirmed that Jackson is a legit candidate, but he also said he wasn’t sure if the embattled athletic director there could afford to take a risk on a coach who doesn’t have FBS experience following the fiasco that was Trent Dilfer. My first thought is that No. 3-ranked Indiana is glad it wasn’t thinking so limited when two years ago the Hoosiers plucked Curt Cignetti from James Madison of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) and just had to reward him with an eight-year, $93 million contract to keep others away.
Good coaches aren’t just at the FBS level. They are everywhere, including the SWAC, MEAC, SIAAC and every other HBCU Conference.
Dishman, Mickey Joseph at Grambling State, Jackson State’s T.C. Taylor and Jackson can win at any level you give them an opportunity to coach.
Let’s not forget, Prairie View isn’t Jackson’s first rodeo. He came from Division II Valdosta State, which has a reputation as a cradle for upcoming coaches. There has been a pipeline from Valdosta to FBS coaching jobs that big names have flowed through, like Hal Mumme, Kirby Smart, Will Muschamp, Dana Holgorsen and Mike Leach.
Jackson, the first Black coach at the Division II powerhouse, seemed like he could have been the next one after last year coaching the Blazers to a 12-0 regular season and the Division II national championship game, which all subsequently earned him Coach of the Year honors in Division II in his third season.
While retread names like Ed Orgeron and Skip Holtz might sound sexier to UAB and its donors, it should be hard to pass on a guy like Jackson, who has proven at his three head coaching stops that he can organize, recruit, motivate, instill discipline and win. He also doesn’t back down or play nice.
We don’t want to see Jackson leave so soon. But he has earned the right if he so chooses.
But for now, Jackson is intent on keeping the main thing the main thing and that Prairie View remains on the winning track with all of his stated goals still ahead for the Panthers.
“Our guys are focused on keeping the main thing the main thing, as are my coaches, as am I. That’s just part of it. We’d rather it that way than nobody talking about you because that means you are a loser or that you haven’t positioned your career to be at places where people want to talk about you. It is what it is and we take great pride in it,” Jackson said. “But it has no bearing on what’s going on inside of our building. I’m just really proud of our players for not even dealing with that and then going forward.”
