Cal legend Desean Jackson making waves as the new Delaware State head coach
Learn more about Jackson's surprising path to college football coaching.
When we think of all the great Cal players who walked through the door of the Jeff Tedford era, it probably would have come as a surprise that Desean Jackson would be the guy who would be leading a college football program first. Yet here he is, a few months in, aiming for the Deion Sanders route of jumpstarting his career at an HBCU school. Jackson had been a coaching assistant in high school at Woodrow Wilson in his hometown of Long Beach before getting the call.
"My mother and father grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, so the roots are right here," the Los Angeles native said. "I have a lot of family here and this is home to me. … I say that to say that my mom went to Duquesne, but my dad went to Bethune Cookman. So, there are roots in my family that come from a black college."
(Full interview with the Breakfast Club)
Delaware State is coming off a 1-11 season and hasn’t had a winning season since 2008. Any success by Jackson at this FCS level would be a major success.
Desean still has strong memories of his time at Cal. He did recently visit Cal during a reunion of the great Jeff Tedford players at the 2024 Big Game.
Jackson already landed two prospects you might be familiar with:
Wide receiver Jadyn Robinson, who was actually a major Cal target but ended up deciding on the HBCU route and is now the highest ranked Delaware State recruit of all time.
Wide receiver Antonio Gates Jr, son of the great Chargers tight end, who transferred in from Michigan State.
And he has loftier plans recruiting-wise:
"We're going to put a gate around Delaware," he said. "Not only Delaware but the closest things to it – Philly, New York, DMV, Baltimore. I played for three NFL teams that are close to this area. And, I don't even want to talk about other areas. Because everyone knows that California is my home. Nowadays with the transfer portal, all this recruiting stuff is crazy. But, there's a lot of guys who are getting overlooked. I want to make sure we don't overlook those guys and give every kid an opportunity."
It is pretty important for Cal to start building out that alumni coaching tree. Let’s see how Desean successful can be in his college football coaching journey.
This just makes me happy!
Sweet, a new team to root for!