Some ideas just make so much sense, you wonder what took so long for them to come to fruition. 

Take this week’s announcement that a full-blown HBCU Scouting Combine, originally scheduled for Miami in March 2020 before Covid-19 caused its cancellation, will instead debut late next January in Mobile, Ala.

 Fifty draft-eligible candidates will be invited from four conferences — CIAA, MEAC, SIAC and SWAC — and other historically Black colleges and universities. They will spend two days working out in Mobile in advance of Senior Bowl week, a vital part of the NFL’s pre-draft calendar. 

The idea even makes perfect sense in terms of logistics as Alabama is home to more HBCU football programs than any other state. A smaller version of the event took place April 9-10 at the University of Alabama Birmingham, but it didn’t lead to any HBCU products being drafted three weeks later. 

“This was something we’ve been talking about for well over a year now,” Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy told Mobile’s Fox 10 News TV. “To get an NFL-sanctioned event in Mobile was a really big deal. Our game is not even an NFL-sanctioned event.”

Hopes are high that this will raise the profile for worthy pro prospects otherwise in danger of being overlooked by pro scouts. The most impressive candidates might even be asked to stick around for Senior Bowl week, Nagy said. 

“This is a big one,” Nagy said. “It’s to provide a great platform for all these HBCU players that might slip through the cracks, provide them a platform where we know all 32 teams are going to be in Mobile for the Senior Bowl.” 

The idea is for the HBCU 50 to go through “a full-scale combine event just like (other players)  get in Indianapolis” in late February/early March, Nagy said. Evaluation will be done throughout the fall by an HBCU Scouting Committee of current and former league executives. 

Once the players arrive at the University of South Alabama, the HBCU Combine will essentially be an abbreviated model of the traditional NFL Scouting Combine. Medical exams, personality tests, and team and media interviews will highlight the two-day effort whirlwind with the usual physical measurements and battery of drills. 

Just one HBCU product, Tennessee State guard Lachavious Simmons, was selected in the 2020 NFL Draft, and he was a seventh-round pick at that. Cut out of training camp with the Chicago Bears, Simmons eventually hooked on with the team’s practice squad and made one start last season. 

Nagy wasted no time contacting Troy Vincent, executive vice president of football operations for the NFL, once the inaugural league-sponsored HBCU Combine was wiped out last spring. 

“I jumped on the phone with Troy Vincent,” Nagy said. “I said, ‘Troy, you need to bring that to Mobile. That event needs to be here.’ We’re in the heart of HBCU country, and he loved the idea. So here we are a little over a year later.”