Marshall Faulk HBCU players commentary made waves this week. It captured exactly where college football stands in 2026. Speaking at SWAC Football Media Day, the first-year Southern University head coach offered a blunt take. He said recruiting has fundamentally changed in the NIL era. The NFL, he says, is no longer the top prize his roster chases. Instead, FBS programs armed with NIL money are pulling top talent out of HBCU locker rooms. They’re doing it before the pros ever get a chance.

Faulk explained his thinking directly. “I believe that the next level is no longer the NFL,” he told reporters, via HBCU Gameday. “We get poached by the FBS. They want our players. … They have an opportunity to maybe go somewhere and make good money while they’re in college. The game has changed. The landscape of college football has changed.” Consequently, coaches at HBCUs now face a recruiting battle. It’s one they never had to fight a decade ago. Faulk knows it firsthand.

Marshall Faulk HBCU Players Comments Reflect a Bigger Shift

For years, the clearest path from an HBCU roster ran straight to the NFL. Stars like Jerry Rice and Walter Payton proved the pipeline worked. Today, though, that pipeline has a detour built into it. NIL deals now let FBS programs offer six-figure paydays to underclassmen. Because of that, the transfer portal has become a faster “next level” than anything the league can promise a 19-year-old. Faulk, therefore, isn’t complaining about the shift. Instead, he’s adapting to it.

“I believe that we as coaches, we have to look at it for what it is and start preparing these kids and coaching them and making sure they have the capacity to move on to the next level,” he added. That admission matters. Rather than fighting the portal era, Faulk is building his program around it. He’s treating player development as a service. It’s one that benefits Southern, even if a star only stays a season or two. Then that player chases a bigger payday elsewhere.

The dynamic isn’t unique to Southern, either. Programs across the SWAC and MEAC have watched breakout performers get scooped up. Power Four rosters keep chasing depth on the cheap. As a result, HBCU coaches now sell a different pitch to recruits. Come develop here, get exposure here, and use this program as a launching pad, wherever that pad eventually leads. It’s a far cry from the old model. Back then, staying four years and hoping for a combine invite was the only realistic route to a paycheck. Marshall Faulk and his fellow HBCU coaches are now selling a different kind of promise altogether.

Faulk Still Wants to Win Every Game

Faulk arrives at Southern after a single season as running backs coach. He served under Deion Sanders at Colorado. There, he helped turn one of the nation’s worst rushing attacks into a respectable unit. That experience, paired with his Hall of Fame résumé, has fueled outsized expectations. Even so, he isn’t interested in setting a specific numerical bar for success this fall.

“I can’t say what it is. You’d have to ask my AD, you’d have to ask the president, the chancellor, what they’re looking for and what success is for them,” Faulk said. “Because my expectation is to win every game that we line up to play. That’s what I want to do. I’m trying to win every damn game we line up to play.”

He pointed to recruiting and offseason development as early markers of progress. “Early successes were we able to recruit? Yes. The players that we retained, did they get better? Did they get better through the offseason program? Yes. Those are some of the things that I like,” he said. He then added something else. The team, he explained, is starting to look, smell, and move like a cohesive unit heading into fall camp.

Southern opens the season on August 29 against Alabama State. The game is set for Legion Field in Birmingham. That neutral-site showcase already carries extra weight given Faulk’s profile. Southern’s coaching staff has been built around familiar faces from Faulk’s NFL and coaching circles. It’s a structure designed to speed up alignment in year one. Meanwhile, the buildup to that opener has turned into one of the most anticipated season debuts in HBCU football. The Pete Richardson Classic branding only adds more juice to the matchup.

Other coaches have echoed similar concerns this offseason. Deion Sanders, Faulk’s mentor at Colorado, has spoken openly about NIL reshaping recruiting at every level. Eddie Robinson Jr. at Alabama State, Southern’s Week 1 opponent, has faced the same portal pressure. That shared reality is part of why the SWAC’s coaching fraternity has grown closer in recent years. They’re all fighting the same battle, just wearing different colors.

Ultimately, Faulk’s comments highlight a tension every HBCU program now has to manage. Losing top talent to the portal stings. It also proves those players were good enough to draw attention in the first place. Meanwhile, the coaches who can turn that reality into a selling point, rather than a threat, may be the ones best positioned to keep winning despite it. Faulk, for his part, sounds ready to make that case at Southern. He plans to do it one recruiting cycle at a time. The Marshall Faulk HBCU players conversation, in other words, is only getting started as fall camp approaches.