Good point. Blame the university president for his poor recruiting and coaching, and leverage that to hang on another year in hope of doing better next year.
The President should suspend the coach and the boycotting players. If the rest of the staff and team want to play, fine, if not, it probably won’t change the end result of the season by more than one game, and won’t have a meaningful impact on the conference standings.
If the school fires the president, the message will be very clear: football is more important than truth or justice. Even if every white player agreed to play, the school would have to forfeit their games because they wouldn’t have enough players to play every position.