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Fear not Boulder, Colorado, Deion Sanders is here to save Colorado football. All he needed when stepping off a private jet was his own silk cloak to accompany his messiah complex. If the extremes and excesses of the NIL era were cast in human form, it would be the man known as Coach Prime.
On Sunday, Sanders made his way into the Colorado practice facility and made a bizarre first impression. He immediately declared his son the starting quarterback before officially entering the transfer portal and presenting himself as the savior of Colorado football. Not much has been said about building Colorado’s players. He made sure that any student athletes he didn’t consider worthy were welcome to leave. He dehumanized and insulted his team of FBS student-athletes he was assigned to manage by telling them that he had his own boys from a lower subdivision of football ready to take their seats so they might as well get into the portal as soon as possible can jump.
“We’ve already done a few positions because I’m bringing my luggage… And it’s Louis [Vuitton]’ Sanders said to an audience of returning Colorado players.
It’s the most selfish thing we’ve seen from him. There is no I in Team, but there is one in Deion and two in Primetime. The purpose of the transfer portal was to give student-athletes a second chance in another program, not a door for new coaches to shove players out of the emergency exits en masse. College football is big business, but it’s never been as cutthroat as it is here. We’ve seen coaches use Twitter to target recruits, but they’ve never fully aimed Elon Musk at their players.
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After Musk took control of Twitter, he considered himself a hammer who saw nails everywhere. He quickly began firing developers and taunting them in tweets, then withdrew big plans after dropping out before his own skis. The Musk cult is exactly what Sanders has for him but without the social (media) awkwardness.
Sanders will no doubt give Colorado a sugar high they haven’t seen in decades. Expectations are low for Colorado after 20 years in which they’ve won just 89 games. At this point, bowl eligibility would be considered a productive season. Colorado is Prime Academy 3.0. The original Prime Academy is defunct in part due to Sanders’ incompetence, but while it was open the school served as a vehicle for his football endeavors.
According to On3’s Josh Newberg, a flood of NIL opportunities will pour into the University of Colorado. He quickly secured an acceptance from Winston Watkins Jr., the IMG Academy 5-star receiver. First he has to make it to 2025 just to get Watkins on campus.
These are small wins, but a 5-star recruit or two isn’t going to change Colorado’s fortunes in the Pac-12. It will require multiple recruiting courses and a coaching philosophy that can give them a slight advantage over the mid-range Pac-12.
After a 13-0 season at Jackson State, Sanders is flying high, but so was Icarus. Sander’s recruiting advantage at Jackson State is wiped out in the Pac-12. CB Travis Hunter won’t be enough to single-handedly lift Colorado’s high school, and Shiloh Sanders wasn’t a full-time starter in South Carolina early in his career.
Former 4-star prep quarterback Shedeur Sanders will be the starting quarterback in 2023, but the gap between him and his fellow SWACs has been closed. Against the SWAC competition, Deion attempted to throw him into the Heisman discussion. In 2023, Shedeur will be measured against more accomplished starters like Washington State’s Cameron Ward, Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. and USC’s Caleb Williams. The No. 2 quarterback in Shedeur’s prep class in 2021 will be a backup for the Huskies. Quarterback No. 7 in 247 Sports’ Composite Rankings Ty Thompson lost his starting job with Oregon to trade Bo Nix from Auburn.
Colorado needs a responsible adult as much as it wins. Elon Musk’s bravado worked at a conference that cares more about halftime shows than football, but we’ve seen how his overconfidence and alienation strategy has decimated his personal wealth, as well as that of Twitter and Tesla. Sanders will use the transfer portal and its unique connections to attract NIL money, celebrities and make high school athletes aware that the University of Colorado exists. He has already created a new energy around the program, but his actual coaching acumen and ability to build a DI staff will be tested.
Deion Sanders’ football stint in Colorado will either be his grand finale or a real-life parable of Icarus flying too close to the sun.
