There was a time when then-Alabama A&M offensive line coach Markus Lawrence held his breath whenever Carson Vinson knocked on his office door. Lawrence feared that, at some point, the gifted 6-foot-7, 314-pound offensive tackle was going to tell him that he was entering the transfer portal.But, despite the trend of promising players leaving for bigger schools and bigger paydays, Vinson stayed in Huntsville, Alabama, to start all four seasons and decided to take the far-less-traveled road to the NFL. This year, he was the only player from a historically Black college and university to be selected in the NFL draft, when the Baltimore Ravens picked him in the fifth round.”He could have left us and chased the money,” said Lawrence, who is now the offensive line coach at South Carolina State. “He instead chased the commitment and the loyalty.”Vinson takes pride in the fact that he comes from a HBCU school, but he says there’s no pride in being the first HBCU player drafted since 2023. He insists the NFL overlooked many players this year from the 21 HBCU schools that compete at the FCS level.
