The Ed Reed era at Bethune-Cookman is already over

Ed Reed will not be the head coach at Bethune-Cookman after not getting his contract ratified.

The Ed Reed era of Bethune-Cookman Wildcats football is over before it even really began.

The College Football and Pro Football Hall of Famer was the latest big name to take over at an HBCU school. Though Reed made a name for himself at Miami collegiately and most notably with the Baltimore Ravens professionally, he is not going to lead the Wildcats this going forward. This is because the university would not ratify his contract to become their next head football coach.

Reed expressed great displeasure over him no longer being able to lead the Wildcats on Saturdays.

"“I was committed to coaching and cultivating with the university, players, and fans. It’s extremely disappointing this won’t be happening.”"

Reed most recently served on his alma mater’s coaching staff, first as Manny Diaz’s chief of staff from 2020 to 2021 and then as a senior football advisor on fellow Hurricane Mario Cristobal’s first Miami staff in 2022.

Ed Reed will no longer be the next head coach of the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats

With fellow legendary defensive back Deion Sanders having had overwhelming success previously at Jackson State, big-named football icons getting into coaching at the HBCU level has become all the rage of late. While these big-named coaches are all in favor of helping turn these kids into men, they have to deal with the fact that nearly all of these programs are grossly under-resourced.

This almost certainly led to Bethune-Cookman backing out of its agreement in principle with Reed, who criticized his employer’s lack of resources on camera. Clearly, Bethune-Cookman was not a fan of that. Though Reed may want to get into coaching at the HBCU level, it may be in his best interest now to go back to Miami and help his and Cristobal’s alma mater actually play in bowls…

Ultimately, this is just sad. We wanted to see Reed have great success at Bethune-Cookman, but he is not going to be afforded the opportunity to do what Sanders did at Jackson State previously. Look. A coach is going to find a way to coach, one way or another. For now, Reed is going to have to decide what he wants to do next after his gig with Bethune-Cookman ended before it started.

Regardless, Reed’s premature exodus from Bethune-Cookman is as controversial as it is strange.

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