Its wood battered and bleached and its nails badly rusted by the decades of hot, wet weather, the creaky structure nonetheless was a landmark to those who regularly passed by it.

Painted on the side of the sagging barn, in faded, yellow block letters, was this simplistic yet conspicuous warning: "Welcome to Hard Times, Miss."

Twenty years ago, when NFL scouts flocked to Alcorn in search of prospects like cornerback Roynell Young, the Philadelphia Eagles' first-round draft choice in 1980 who made the Pro Bowl squad in just his third NFL season, that cautionary note could not have been more misplaced.

Back then a scout could pull into Lorman in the evening, enjoy a heaping country breakfast the next morning, then drive into Alcorn for the afternoon practice and quickly identify six or seven Braves seniors to recommend to his personnel director.

Until the last couple springs, however, things had changed pretty dramatically in Lorman and at Alcorn State.

The barn was long gone. Unfortunately, so were the scouts, who until just recently seemed to have forgotten the way to Alcorn State and some of the other traditionally black college football programs which over the past 50 years provided 14 Hall of Fame performers for the league.

"The scouts would still come," Alcorn State coach Johnny Thomas said. "But they didn't come as often. And they certainly didn't stay as long. But that seems to be changing again now. The cycle is coming back our way a little bit. I think we're on the map again. The league and scouts are kind of rediscovering us, it seems."

The trend of the NFL drafts of the '90s graphically indicated that it was no longer necessary to dispatch legions of scouts to the historically black universities of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, the Southwestern Athletic Conference, the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association or Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

The return on the NFL's investment wasn't what it used to be.

These were schools that turned out players like Lem Barney (Jackson State), Roosevelt Brown (Morgan State), Walter Payton (Jackson State), Art Shell (Maryland-Eastern Shore), Larry Little (Bethune-Cookman) and Mel Blount (Southern).

But suddenly the talent faucet was turned off.

"You could see a decline in the programs," said Detroit Lions defensive end Robert Porcher, a first-round pick from South Carolina State in 1992. "Instead of looking around at practice and thinking, 'Hey, there are three or four guys here who could play (in the NFL),' there instead was maybe one. And to me, a guy who benefited from playing at a black school, that was painful."

Not since 1996, when Pittsburgh selected North Carolina A&T offensive tackle Jamain Stephens, have the black colleges produced a first-round draft choice. The 10 drafts in the '90s included only eight first-rounders from those schools, and three were in 1995.

Last year's draft had just nine players selected from the traditionally black universities. The highest of those picks was Kentucky State defensive tackle Cletidus Hunt. He was chosen by Green Bay in the third round and after 93 names already were off the board.

But the first draft of this new millennium definitely could signal a resurgence by black colleges, scouts surveyed by SportsLine.com over the last two weeks agreed.

The spigot isn't opened all the way yet, but this draft and the next several lotteries as well figure to produce more than just the talent trickle to which scouts have become accustomed from the black colleges in the '90s.

Jackson State, which hasn't produced a first-round choice since offensive lineman Lester Holmes in 1993, could have a pair of No. 1s on April 15 in wide receiver Sylvester Morris and cornerback Rashard Anderson.

Offensive tackle Michael Thompson of Tennessee State could be the school's first No. 1 choice since defensive end "Too Tall" Jones in 1974, and certainly is no worse than a second-round selection.

Kentucky State center Seneca Gray and guard Jason Thomas of Hampton University are among the top prospects at their respective positions and both should go by the time the third round concludes.

Tailback Maurice Smith of North Carolina A&T is moving up draft boards and Tennessee State quarterback Leon Murray is a late riser who now figures to be drafted. Cheyney State defensive tackle Keith Jackson is among the most compelling players in the middle rounds.

"Just in the time I was in school, you could see better players coming into the programs," Jackson State's Morris said at the February combine workouts. "The last couple years, the caliber of play got a lot better, a lot faster. They're recruiting some really good people."

The consensus is that, for the first time since 1997, the black colleges could have double-digit players selected. In the 1998 and '99 lotteries, the schools totaled only 17 draft choices.

"There are some interesting people at those schools, and that's good news for us, good to see they are beginning to attract and develop NFL prospects again," said Green Bay general manager Ron Wolf, who last year drafted three players from black universities. "It's been a down cycle at some of those schools, but they're bouncing back now."

That appears to be the overall situation, in fact, at the black universities.

A survey of 11 NFL personnel directors three weeks before last year's draft indicated that of the players on the 25th anniversary Black College All-American team, only four rate as "draftable."

In fact, just three were selected from among the '99 draft crop of 253 prospects.

The offensive and defensive players of the year on that All-American team, quarterback Patrick Bonner of Florida A&M and Mississippi Valley State linebacker Terry Houzah, were not even drafted. Both signed with teams as free agents and neither made a roster.

But a similar survey this year indicated there could be as many as 8-10 prospects from the Black College All-American team taken April 15-16.

Coaches from the 42 black schools, scouts and even players point to that as a viable sign programs are on the upswing.

Certainly the overall reduction in scholarship has contributed to the influx of better players at the black schools. And there is, several coaches noted, a new understanding of the legacy of those universities, not only in terms of their contributions to society at large but also to athletics.

"We're getting recruits," said Cheyney State coach John Parker, "who have an understanding for our legacy in the black colleges. There has been a period when, if you came to one of our schools, it was like you 'settled for' it, you know? That's not the case anymore."

Said defensive end Peppi Zellner, a Fort Valley State product who was drafted by Dallas in the fourth round last year: "I was proud to say I played at a black college. Maybe I didn't start out at one of those schools, but Fort Valley gave me the chance to get it together academically and on the playing field, and I'm grateful. I'd like to think I'm one of the guys who will force scouts to focus again on the black schools."

One need look no further than the proud program at Grambling, which features four members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, to trace the steady decline that marked the black colleges until this year's rebirth.

Grambling hasn't turned out a first-round selection since Doug Williams went to Tampa Bay in 1978, and that drought won't end this year, either.

But with Williams now in place as head coach at Grambling, the school has widened its recruiting base, begun to attract players it could only think about pursuing the past 10-15 years, and figures to begin producing high-round choices again with the next couple seasons.

The decline of the black colleges in the draft was more than anything a reflection of integration in the South and the open recruiting policies that followed. When mainstream colleges opened their doors to minority athletes, the minority colleges suffered a marked dropoff in quality of play.

"There's no doubt," San Diego general manager Bobby Beathard said, "that integration in the Southern schools was the reason the black programs don't turn out the players they used to. Sure it had a drastic effect on the quality of their prospects. But I think it has slowly turned around now."

Said Tampa Bay Bucs coach Tony Dungy: "Let's face it, 20-25 years ago, Charlie Ward would have been playing at Florida A&M and not Florida State. But the kids who once went to Grambling or Southern or Alcorn State are going to Tennessee, Georgia or Florida now. It's just a microcosm of society. There came a point when the big football schools had no choice but to recruit black players. And that drained the resources of black schools."

Billy Joe, the coach at Florida A&M, said last week the old adage still holds true: If a player has NFL talent, the scouts will find him. But he acknowledged the talent evaluators didn't dig quite as hard, turn over as many rocks as they once did, at the black schools. And the reason, he allowed, was simple.

"It is just a fact that we haven't had as many prospects as we once did," Joe said. "Twenty-five years ago, a scout could come here or go to Grambling and know he was going to track seven or eight (prospects) overall and usually a first-rounder. The last eight or 10 years, they come in, and they were finding guys you maybe take in the fifth round. But just let the schools turn out one or two first-rounders every year again and they'll beat a path to us."

Green Bay vice president of personnel Ken Herock, who has been chief talent assessor for four teams during his long career in the league, bemoaned the demise of the black colleges when he apprised their situation in 1998.

"The kids they're able to attract now are the ones who have fallen through the cracks," he said. "You know, a player who might not qualify academically at a big school. Or a player who transfers in, or maybe a late-bloomer. That's just the cruel reality. I'd love to see them getting first-rounders, because their coaches work hard and those schools have been good to the NFL. But it's not happening."

Two years later, Herock is among those who see the trend reversing again and is excited by the likelihood the black universities might again become training grounds for future NFL stars.

In 1974, the black colleges provided four No. 1 picks, and there were five first-round choices in 1975, including Payton.

Jerry Rice is the only black college first-round pick since 1975 to play in more than one Pro Bowl game.(Allsport)

But since '75, there have been just 15 first-round selections from the black colleges. Of that group, only Jerry Rice (Mississippi Valley State, '85) has been to more than one Pro Bowl game.

Former Steelers director of football operations Tom Donahoe, in Knoxville for the on-campus workouts of Tennessee's top prospects in the 1999 draft, noticed the annual team pictures on the wall. In the photographs from the 1970s, there were virtually no black players; for the 1980s and '90s, the black players represented the majority.

"Just walking along the wall and looking at those team pictures from year to year ... was like viewing the evolution of integration at Southern football schools," Donahoe said. "Nobody really ignored black schools. Certainly we didn't in Pittsburgh. When we get a player like (linebacker) Earl Holmes from Florida A&M in the fourth round (in 1996), we're thrilled. We just were not getting many players like that for a while, that's all."

Beathard used four of his eight selections in '97 on players from black schools and cited that as a sign those colleges are nurturing prospects again. He agreed that Grambling, which last year had its best recruiting class in 15 years and followed that up with another solid group this spring, is an example of a school that is on the rise again under Williams.

A former Super Bowl most valuable player and a man who has been outspoken about the lack of black quarterbacks in the league, Williams allowed he does not like to talk about the decline in the caliber of play at black colleges, because he doesn't necessarily subscribe to the theory that the players were not as good.

Privately, many of his colleagues disagree.

It is chic, several said, to blame a lot of the ills on poor funding, lack of exposure or coaching that often was rudimentary at best. But, said Billy Joe, the facts are the facts. And the reality was that, over the last decade, the NFL could not identify viable prospects at the black colleges.

"There's no blame, because it's a fact of life," Joe said. "Would I rather have a plethora of high-round draft picks, like we used to have, but still have segregation? No way. We can't afford to step back in society. Everything comes with a price. And, yeah, we paid the price. But as long as the scouts still come into our place and look at our kids, and those players get a fair shake in the NFL (evaluation) process, then it's a small price to pay."

Diminishing returns

During the '90s, the number of first-round choices and prospects selected overall from the historically black colleges diminished.

Here's a look at how the black schools fared in the past eight drafts: