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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/Cloakacola on 2025-08-27 00:14:08+00:00.

After Idaho State’s near upset over UNLV, I decided to look at their remaining schedule and stumbled upon a weird team on their schedule: Lincoln (CA). I remember seeing D2 programs Lincoln (PA) and Lincoln (MO), but never Lincoln (CA). So naturally I decided to do some digging and found…something, with this article from USA Today shedding light on what exactly is going on with the program. Highly recommend the read. Anyways, here are my notes of what i found particularly interesting.

  • The Lincoln (CA) football team represents the private university Lincoln University in Oakland, California, which currently has an enrollment of 573 students. It looks like the university is a two story ~4,000 sqft building. They have a library across the street.
  • Lincoln is also on the list of “Institutions on Heightened Cash Monitoring” of the U.S. Department of Education. The list notes “severe findings” for Lincoln University. They also have a “Tuition Deposit” page on their athletics website to “pay your Five Hundred Dollars ($500) deposit for Summer 2025 tuition” via…Zelle, Venmo, CashApp, or PayPal.
  • The university sponsors five athletic programs (basketball and soccer for both men and women in addition to football) and are known as the Lincoln “Oaklanders”.
  • Since the program does not have a home field, they instead play every game on their schedule on the road as a “traveling team”, even traveling as far as Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, New York, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
  • The Oaklanders have been playing since 2021 and have compiled a record of 3-39 under Head Coach and Atheltic Director Desmond Gumbs. At first, it’s unclear exactly what division they are classified as. But then you find that, according to the article, this is because they are not a member of the NCAA. In fact, they’re not a member of the NAIA either. But, since they are an accredited 4 year institution, their NCAA classifies them as a “countable opponent.” Funnily enough, former Cal Golden Bear and Green Bay Packer Desmond Bishop was listed as a co-DC for the 2021 season.
  • Obviously, the team has had little success on the field and over blown out most of the time. Some of the most notable losses are 75-0 against UT Permian Basin, 88-12 to West Georgia, and 92-0 against Central Washington. They haven’t even managed to score more than a touchdown in half of their games. Their three wins also happen to be their three lowest-attendance games: 34-9 over D3 Williamette in 2021, 70-0 over D3 Hilbert (who was playing in their inaugural season and to this day hasn’t won a game) in 2021, and 20-17 over D2 Bluefield in 2022. They haven’t won since and are on a 24 game losing streak.
  • Respectively from 2021-2024, the Division-less Oaklanders have played 1, 5, 9, and 3 D1 programs and will play 5 more in 2025. In addition to their rigorous 10 road game schedule, the team does not have a single bye week between their opener at Lincoln (MO) on August 30th and their finale at Northeast State on November 1st.
  • Though the Oaklanders do not compete in the NCAA or NAIA, the plan is reportedly to become a D2 school and eventually play home games at…the Oakland A’s Coliseum?
  • Several obscure and jarring allegations include the lack of a home or practice field, weight room, certified athletic trainer, adequate housing, and unexpected billings. The part in the article about the housing in particular is shocking.
  • There was also a Lincoln-Lincoln game last year against Lincoln (MO)
  • Apparently Gary Payton was the basketball head coach from ‘21-‘23?
  • I looked into Coach/AD Gumbs and honestly, this was the probably most perplexing part. When I googled him, the first result the popped up was a SoundCloud account under his name. He’s also apparently a former movie director, owed $1.2M from a bankruptcy case back in 2022, something about boxing? Supposedly his services at Lincoln are unpaid, and the president himself said that “never have the funds for it.” Its best just to read yet another USA Today article, which also mentions that the founding of the athletic department at Lincoln was Gumbs’ idea.

Obviously, there are a lot of red flags surrounding the school and its athletic program. In summary, from what I can put together, Lincoln relied heavily on international students until 2020 when the pandemic hit, which caused enrollment to plummet. Stricter immigration policies also contributed to enrollment decline. University president Mikhail Brodsky, in the face of financial adversity, reached out more to the locals to boost enrollment to keep their head above water. Gumbs, who had recently attempted to start his own prep school, comes up one day and proposes to Brodsky that starting an athletic program for the university would help out with enrollment. In addition, traveling to other schools (especially D1 programs) would bring in much-needed cash for Lincoln. Enrollment did in fact see a jump, from 88 undergrads in 2020 to 177 in 2022. They convince players to come to Lincoln because of the opportunity to play many D1 opponents. And the football program is bringing in money to a degree, having been paid $421,000 in 2023 alone; however, according to Gumbs, the athletics department is still far from breaking even. Still, these controversies are all argued to be a result of financial hardships of a program that has a “dream” and wants to offer players with affordable “opportunities” that they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Even with all of this information, there’s still so much weird stuff going on here. Is Lincoln truly just a school trying to navigate its way through a post-COVID world, or is there more than meets the eye? What’s up with Desmond Gumbs, who has had bankruptcy, lawsuits, and debt follow him everywhere? Is he a man with a dream or a scam artist? Are the aspirations feasible, unrealistic, or even real at all? Why do students pay their tuition through Venmo? This Reddit thread from a couple of years ago already discusses the aforementioned article, but I found a little bit more info on the school itself that was worth mentioning and feel like this deserves more attention than it got.

Edit: Added the date of their final game in 2025