LUT WILLIAMS, BCSP Editor
It came dangerously close to no black college player being taken in last week’s 2023 NFL Draft.
It was down to the last 15 picks of Saturday’s seventh and final round before the New England Patriots selected Jackson State defensive back/ kick returner Isaiah Bolden with the 28th selection of that round. Bolden was the 245th overall pick out of the 259 players drafted.
“It means a lot to me. Just having that chip on my shoulder, carrying the weight of HBCUs,” Bolden told the Patriots in an interview just after his selection. “I’ve got something to prove. There’s a lot of talented guys that are out there. I just understand that chip on my shoulder is for all the HBCUs.”
It was the third time in the last 12 NFL Drafts that only one player from the HBCU ranks was selected. In his singular selection, Bolden joins Tennessee State offensive lineman Lachavious Simmons in 2020 and South Carolina State safety Christian Thompson in 2012 in that distinction.
Before that, you had to go back 58 years – back to early NFL Drafts of 1950, 1951 and 1954 to find just one black college player drafted (See STAT CORNER I).
Isaiah Bolden
Bolden, from Tampa, Fla., began his collegiate career in 2018 and spent two years at Florida State before joining head coach and fellow FSU product Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders at JSU. Bolden has a rare combination of skills that he displayed at JSU similar to those of his mentor and former head coach.
Like Sanders, Bolden has speed as evidenced by his blistering 4.31-second clocking in the 40- yard dash before 27 NFL scouts at JSU’s Pro Day. It would have been the third-fastest time for a defensive back at the NFL Combine.
He also had a 38-inch vertical jump, a 1.54 second timing in the 10-yard split and a 10-foot, 9-inch broad jump. He proved that he has elite speed and is an elite athlete. It was a trait the
Patriots appeared to stock up on in the latter parts of the draft.
“Today, I made me some money,” Bolden told reporters after his Pro Day performance. “I proved the doubters wrong. I had a mentality and an edge to me. People were critiquing what I was going to run and what I was going to jump. I did everything they thought I was going to do.”
Again, like Sanders, Bolden has proven he can be a difference-maker as a kick returner. In the 2021 season, he led the FCS with a 36.9-yard average on 16 kickoff returns and was one of the most feared weapons in JSU’s arsenal. His 2021 kick return average was better than any player in the FCS or FBS. He returned two kickoffs for touchdowns including a 91-yarder to paydirt in the SWAC Championship Game vs. Prairie View A&M. In the 2022 season, he shared kickoff return duties with freshman Kevin Coleman. Bolden returned 10 kickoffs for an average of 26.0 yards without a TD in 2022 .
While playing as a rotational player in JSU’s secondary, Bolden played in all 13 games and was second on the Tigers with seven passes defended without an interception in 2022. He also had one fumble recovery while posting 30 solos and 14 assists, 44 tackles overall. He was sixth for JSU in tackles. In 2021, he played in ten games with eight tackles.
Sanders was a rare HBCU head coach who almost guaranteed that his recruits would make it into pro football. Bolden becomes the second Sanders’ JSU player to be drafted. Linebacker James Houston was taken by Detroit in the sixth round of last year’s draft. He went on to post eight sacks in the Lions’ final seven games and tie an NFL record with a sack in his first four games.
With Houston and Bolden, Jackson State had a player drafted in consecutive years for the first time since 1997-98.
What the Patriots are saying?
New England Director of Player Personnel Matt Groh noted Bolden’s speed adding that the Patriots hosted him on a pre-draft visit.
“He grew up down in Florida and football is in a lot of those guys’ veins,” Groh said. “I was able to spend some time with Isaiah here and I’m looking forward to getting to know him better and congratulate him on representing [HBCUs]. I think that’s a great thing.”
A downward trend continues
This year’s draft continues a downward trend of HBCU players in the NFL Draft. HBCU players’ draft numbers have not reached double digits since 13 players from their ranks were taken in the 2000 Draft.
Since then, their highest numbers were eight in the 2003 draft and six in 2005. Other than those two drafts, the numbers have been at five or below since 2000. Prior to 1998, HBCU draftees reached double digits in 30 of 31 years with a high of 70 in the 1968 season.
A little HBCU NFL Draft history
The first black college player to be taken in an NFL Draft was North Carolina A&T running back Bob “Stonewall” Jackson in the 1950 draft. It came 14 years after the league’s debut draft in 1936.
The only year that HBCU players were completely shut out of the NFL Draft was in 2021. While it is certainly part of a trend, that 2021 phenomenon could easily be attributed to the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic caused no black college teams to play in the fall of 2020 and most (Alcorn State of the SWAC, the entire CIAA and SIAC and most of the MEAC) to opt out of playing in the spring of 2021.