By the time a president’s term is running out, and certainly when his successor has been elected, he’s given the moniker “lame duck.”

It does not sound like a compliment, and it certainly is not, because the president’s ability to enforce his agenda becomes increasingly diminished. It’s too bad college football coaches have not learned from U.S. politics; now there is a startling trend in which elderly head coaches are naming their successors years before retirement. It’s a closed selection process that is not only unfair to other candidates, but also unfair for the coach-in-waiting.

First it is important to understand why they choose a coach-in-waiting. For coaches like Florida State’s Bobby Bowden, 80, or Kentucky’s Rich Brooks, 68, they need that younger face to serve as an ambassador to recruits to assuage any concerns that the head coach may retire, leaving the whole program in chaos.

Recruits, for all their arrogant banter, are inherently insecure and don’t want to commit to a Bobby

Bowden to see him retire and Nick Saban hired. They want and need that comfort level before they can commit to a school. That is what Jimbo Fisher and Joker Philips – two of the best names in the coaching ranks – provide to recruits. They’re like princes, making sure the king has an heir.

Joe Paterno is able to continue without a coach-in-waiting, but he is an exception to the rule and is best saved for a different day.

This practice also keeps teams’ coordinators in place for a few years, which only helps the incumbent head coach. Imagine if Virginia had done this with Al Golden, Temple’s coach. Maybe the Cavaliers wouldn’t be sitting at 3-6 and Al Groh’s job wouldn’t be on the line, while Golden would have been on his way to his goal of becoming a head coach.

Unfortunately for these coaches-in-waiting, being the prince means being subservient to the king. Sure, everyone in the kingdom knows who you are and you’re on a higher level than most, but you are not the one making the decisions and you don’t know when it is that you’ll finally get the nod to move up.

Think Prince Charles has had it bad all these years? Try being Jimbo Fisher and watch as a program that was once the gold standard in college football is brought to its knees while you sit back and wait until you can finally restructure it.

It is easy to get fooled by the fact that Bobby Bowden does not wear a head set during games, but the old fox still runs the show in Tallahassee. He may not call the plays, but he decides the rest of the coaching staff – who’s to say that Jimbo Fisher is a huge fan of the Seminoles’ defensive strategy or their strength and conditioning program? – and the overall trajectory of the program is still in his hands.

It also remains to be seen just how good these coaches-in-waiting are. Fisher’s offense has been good, averaging 443 yards per game and Mill Muschamp’s defense at Texas has been stellar. But then there is Maryland’s James Franklin, successor to Ralph Friedgen, whose offense has barely managed 300 yard per game as the Terps have stumbled to a 2-7 record, causing many to wonder if Friedgen should still be the coach.

The main problem with this process is that it is exclusive and somewhat unfair. Obviously it has to be exclusionary – that is the point of naming a successor who ensures a smooth transition of power. But it seems like guidelines should be in place. In a sport that is still struggling to add minority head coaches – only nine out of 120 Division I-A coaches are minorities – this process will only be detrimental to the diversity problem in the college coaching ranks. Of the coaches-in-waiting at major programs, only one – Kentucky’s Phillips – is a minority.

ost programs, using this anointing process, are going to tab coordinators as successors; but unfortunately, most of these coordinators are white. Besides Kentucky, where both coordinators are black, there are only five coordinators in the SEC that are minorities. The Big Ten is even worse with only two minority coordinators. If the coordinators at these schools remain predominately white, then it will be predominately white candidates chosen as coaches-in-waiting, and the number of minority head coaches will lag behind. As it stands now, only 7.5 percent of coaches are minorities in a sport where

54 percent of the players are minorities.

The NCAA has taken notice too.

“We really need to emphasize that designating a successor … closes off inclusion – it closes off opening up interviews for all top candidates,” NCAA Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Charlotte Westerhaus told USA Today. “And if you close that off, you will inevitably close off the opportunity to diversify the ranks of college football.”

The NCAA needs to step in and set some guidelines soon. In the meantime, coaches-in-waiting will sit on the side and watch as programs sputter, and qualified coaches won’t be given a chance to interview for jobs that should be open to a larger field of candidates.

Ryan Travers is a senior in the College. He can be reached at traversthehoya.com. Illegal Procedure appears in every Friday issue of Hoya Sports.”