Deion Sanders takes issue with payday games. "All money ain't good money."
Already this season, eight FCS teams have knocked off FBS opponents. Teams with fewer scholarships and a fraction of the resources are dishing out Ls on a weekly basis. Jacksonville State laid a stink on Florida State that that program will never fully wash off. Missouri players arrived to their locker room ahead of Saturday's game with Southeast Missouri State with a list of FCS-over-FBS upsets taped inside every locker.
Deion Sanders is set for his first FBS buy game as Jackson State's head coach on Saturday and, like many accepted practices of the industry he stepped into, he's questioning the premise of the entire ordeal.
"Normally you just get paid to go to get beat, right?" Sanders said during the SWAC coaches teleconference on Monday. "That's really the goal, right? Somebody pays you, your program makes more money than they normally will to go get your butt kicked.
"I don't believe in that."
Jackson State hasn't beaten an FBS foe since at least 1978, but Deion's team has a good chance to end that drought on Saturday. The 2-0 Tigers visit ULM, losers of 12 straight games.
The last HBCU program to beat an FBS opponent was North Carolina A&T, who scored a 28-23 upset of East Carolina in 2018.
The Tigers will make $300,000 win or lose, but Jackson State's head coach takes issue with the assumption his team is going to Monroe to lose.
"Normally when you play against a powerhouse like I see some of the HBCU schools have taken, it helps the budget, but it kills the morale," Sanders said. "How can getting your butt kicked, I mean really kicked, help you as a team? Financially, cool. All money ain't good money."
