There were a revolving door of coaching changes. A promising Canadian-born quarterback named Brandon Bridge dubbed “Air Canada” because of his exciting style of play had left the school.
The Alcorn State University Alumni Foundation coordinated efforts to have then head coach Melvin Spears removed citing “low team morale, frayed relationships between the coaching staff and parents of student-athletes, and poor on-field performance.”
Spears, who had won a league championship at Grambling State, had been fired.
Alcorn State had hit rock bottom.
Without a coach for most of the 2012 offseason, the school named Jay Hopson its head coach. He was an unknown in HBCU football circles, although he had been an assistant at the FBS level for a number of years.
He also is white.
Not only is Hopson white, but he is the first white head coach in the history of the storied conference.
The thought of Hopson roaming the sidelines at an historically black school rubbed a lot of traditionalists the wrong way, believing that there had to be a black coach just as qualified.
Alcorn State had unexpectedly become at the center of discussions about race. Never mind that Hopson significantly downplayed its possible impact on the football team.
Alcorn State was bad that first season, though.
They got better in Hopson’s second season when he actually had time to recruit like every other coach in America. Then last season happened.