BOULDER \u2013 After a 3-9 record turned the Buffs from We Comin\u2019 to They Goin\u2019 faster than you can say transfer portal, all the bombast of Coach Prime has been replaced with sober reflection by Deion Sanders.<\/p>\n
His CU football program is in trouble. It is at a crossroads. Make a wrong turn here, and Sanders could find himself at the point of no return.<\/p>\n
With his brand recognition no longer sufficient to prevent unwanted roster churn that now forces Prime to again build a team from nearly scratch, it appears that pay-for-play might have done more harm than good to the goal of restoring football glory to Boulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody (in college sports) is dealing with the same thing,\u201d Sanders said Tuesday. \u201cSome people may have more money to go shopping than others. But I\u2019m happy about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
His response was oh-so-very Prime, when I asked: Has building a winner in Boulder been harder than he anticipated?<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not going to say that,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n
Nobody, least of all a knucklehead like me, is going to serve Prime a heapin\u2019 helping of humble pie.<\/p>\n
But in his next breath, Sanders surprised me. He turned reflective, going so far to offer a mea culpa for a once-hot football program\u2019s rapid and alarming tumble back toward the bottom of the Big 12 Conference standings<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made some tremendous mistakes in certain positions that derailed us a year ago,\u201d Sanders conceded.<\/p>\n
He did identify those mistakes by name. But, for starters, connecting the dots between the shaky quarterback play of Kaidon Salter, lured from Liberty in the transfer portal, and the Buffs\u2019 1-8 conference record seems straight-line obvious.<\/p>\n
With spring practice coming to an end Saturday, the national shine is off Prime. The CU coach still wears sunglasses indoors, but the future doesn\u2019t look nearly so bright as when Sanders was hired in December 2022.<\/p>\n
When the Buffs held workouts for pro scouts last week, there was no sure-fire NFL player on the field. The same ballyhooed recruits who were lured to Boulder by Prime have taken the money from other schools and ran off to Notre Dame, Louisiana State and Clemson.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone is dissatisfied and didn\u2019t want to be here (in Boulder), do you really want him?\u201d said Sanders. He wished departing players all the best in chasing their \u201cpie in the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hits to the roster by cats abandoning a sinking Buffs ship were harsh, but maybe the not-so-subtle put downs of Sanders\u2019 program by former five-star offensive line prospect Jordan Seaton and backup quarterback Ryan Staub stung worse.<\/p>\n
Football means more at LSU, said Seaton, while Staub insists he got more coaching during his first month at Tennessee than in three years at CU.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of our past players have been commenting on us,\u201d Sanders said. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to be provoked to comment back or say anything ignorantly back.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the age of the transfer portal\u2019s temptation of name, image and likeness riches, the charisma of Coach Prime doesn\u2019t count as much as cold, hard cash.<\/p>\n
I wondered aloud: Can the pay-for-play landscape in college football make Sanders\u2019 task of building a championship program at CU more difficult?<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d the CU coach admitted. \u201cBut you\u2019ve got to be built for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The athlete who remains loyal to one football program for his entire college career is going the way of the dinosaur. And that trend can result in the Buffs being little more than a farm team for national title contenders if Colorado fails to win on a consistent basis, because a bag of money far outweighs the shine of a celebrity coach.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thinking of top NFL prospects as Fernando Mendoza of Indiana and Carson Beck of Miami, Sanders said: \u201cI think every quarterback in the durn draft, didn\u2019t they transfer? That is where we are now in college football. I can\u2019t be upset about that. It is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Has Sanders learned his lesson that quick fixes without a solid foundation won\u2019t withstand hard times? Grown smarter as a coach? With the 59 new players that will reshape the Buffs program in 2026, he said there was more emphasis on identifying leaders from winning teams with families that cared about more than self-enrichment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve just got to make the best of the hand that we\u2019re dealt. And I like it. I like the hand we\u2019re dealt. I can\u2019t be upset with that,\u201d Sanders said.<\/p>\n
When the Buffs \u201cgot our butts kicked,\u201d Prime added, \u201cwe did that. We made those mistakes. We\u2019ve got to right our wrongs.\u201d<\/p>\n
How painful will the penance be for those football sins?<\/p>\n
And from behind his shades, has Sanders finally seen the light?<\/p>\n
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