In April 2021, Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans legend Eddie George was introduced as the new head football coach of the Tennessee St. Tigers.
It was a move that surprised many at the time, including George himself.
“He probably thought we were asking for money,” joked then-university president Dr. Glenda Glover.
But his wife, Tamara, asked him a simple question that ultimately made the decision for him.
“Why not?”
So George accepted and became the 22nd head coach in program history, taking over over Rod Reed (58-61) who coached the Tigers for 11 seasons.
While it was a happy occasion, it presented an immediate challenge for the former NFL star.
The team was coming off of a 2-5 season that was pushed to the spring due to the Pandemic. Even more glaring was the fact that George had no coaching experience.
In his first season, the Tigers finished with a 5-6 record. In year two, he finished 4-7 and chatter started swirling that maybe George wasn’t the right fit for the program.
But the following year the Tigers went 6-5, giving the program its first winning season since 2017 when they also finished 6-5.
This season, George finished a season the way athletic director Dr. Mikki Allen envisioned when he offered him the job.
The Tigers went 9-3 (6-2 in the conference) and won the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) Championship by beating Southeast Missouri St 28-21, giving the program its first OVC title since the 1999 season. That win also gave the Tigers a spot in the NCAA FCS Playoffs, their first since 2013, where they will face Montana this Saturday.
But the real story is Eddie George’s leadership and how he rebuilt a program after years of futility, especially under the burden of the financial challenges and leadership questions that the university is currently experiencing.
Those are some of the reasons why the Tigers’ OVC title couldn’t have arrived at a better time. It’s also an auspicious achievement as it comes during the 25th anniversary of the team’s 1999 OVC championship season when the team won 11 games and went 7-0 in conference play.
George’s amazing season adds to the success that former NFL players have had at HBCUs, the most obvious being Deion Sanders.
After taking over the 4-8 team, Sanders went 4-3, 11-2 and 12-1 at Jackson St., winning two SWAC titles and making two Celebration Bowl appearances. He also landed Travis Hunter, who flipped his commitment from Florida St. to play for Sanders in Mississippi.
George, like Sanders, also convinced a star player in Austin Peay star quarterback Draylen Ellis to make the move to an HBCU program. That move paid dividends as Ellis had 232 yards passing, 46 yards rushing and 3 total TDs in the OVC Championship game.
Now George gets to lead his OVC title-winning Tigers into the FCS Playoffs where he hopes to surpass the success of the 2013 team that made it to the second round of the playoffs.
But no matter what happens on Saturday, George has already won and convinced the doubters that he knows how to coach.
And, most importantly, his wife’s question of “why not?” has been answered.
