A rare thing has taken place in Boulder, Colorado. A Black man was replaced by another Black man.
That rarely happens in any industry, especially sports.
After Mel Tucker left Colorado to take the job at Michigan State, Karl Dorrell has been hired as his replacement. Dorrell previously served as head coach at UCLA from 2003-2007 (35-27) and has spent time in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins, Houston Texas, Vanderbilt, and New York Jets since then.
“I’m excited to be back, it’s like coming home,” said Dorrell in a statement, as he worked as an assistant at Colorado in two different stints during the 1990s. “The thing that excited me about this job is that my experience in the past here, for the most part, has been very successful. We had a lot of good teams, went to a lot of good bowl games. It’s a top-caliber program that has a lot of potential, and I’m excited to return it to that level.”
It’s been reported that Dorrell signed a five-year, $18 million contract, in which his first-year salary ($3.2 million) is expected to be about $500,000 more than what Tucker was getting. Tucker signed a six-year deal with the Spartans in which he is expected to take home at least $5.5 million per year.
At the beginning of last season, there were only 14 Black head coaches out of the 130 FBS programs, representing just 10%. By the end of the season, Frank Wilson was fired at UTSA, Charlie Strong was out at USF, and Willie Taggart was no more at Florida State.
But since then, Tucker left for greener pastures at Michigan State, Dorrell was his replacement, and Taggart (FAU) and Wilson (McNeese State) were able to get other head coaching opportunities.
Also worth mentioning, Florida Gators tight ends coach Larry Scott (also one of their top recruiters) left the post in early February to become the head coach at HBCU Howard.
