With Deion Sanders, there’s no behind the scenes.
Everything, every element of the new Colorado head coach’s life, is presented for public consumption through the camera lenses that Sanders makes omnipresent in his life.
And Coach Prime, on Amazon Prime, is showing as much to an all-new level.
Debuting his long-touted documentary Thursday on the mega streaming service, which also has Thursday night NFL games and counts Sanders as a spokesman, Sanders peeled back even more layers on his wildly successful run atop the Jackson State football program – Sanders’s inaugural turn as a college head coach.
With considerable cursing from his assistant coaches – something against which Coach Prime has routinely spoken out, Episode 1 of ‘Coach Prime’ first peeled back the curtain on Sanders’s alleged beef with iconic Alabama head coach Nick Saban – with whom Prime routinely has recorded Aflac Insurance commercials.
Earlier in 2022, Saban sounded off on what he perceived was happening in college football due to Name, Image and Likeness opportunities – and Saban specifically alleged – with what he said was a newspaper report as his backdrop – that Sanders’s Jackson State program had paid seven figures to sign a star player.
“They paid a million dollars for a guy to come to Jackson State, it was in the papers,” Saban was shown to say on the Prime video.
But as Coach Prime and Saban prepared to shoot an Aflac commercial together in Los Angeles mid-summer, Sanders defended his friend.
“I knew he what he was trying to say, what he was trying to accomplish,” Sanders said. “You can’t judge a man by the thought process of the moment. He’s established himself to be a monument, so we’re not going to let a moment (dictate) how to feel about him.
“Coach Saban is a good dude.”
The cameras then take viewers inside the luxury RVs on the set of the commercial, where Saban and Sanders speak.
“When I said what I said before, my point was, is that we want this to be?,” Saban tells Sanders. “Because it’s what it’s turned into. I could see it coming.”
Though he did not disclose the name of the prospect, Sanders said his Jackson State staff halted recruitment of a prospect who wanted “to talk business.”
“We will never call you back again son,” Sanders said, of the “let’s talk about the business” conversation.
Added Saban, “Kids should go to college to be developed and valued for their future, not based on what they’re going to make.”
As the initial episode cuts to video from the HBCU pro day workout at Jackson State, which featured a number of high-profile attendees including Hollywood and former pro wrestling icon Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Sanders emphatically states his impact on HBCU football.
“All this is ‘B.P. and ‘A.P.’ You know what that means?,” Sanders asked. “It’s Before Prime and After Prime. Let’s get that straight, and when I smile, just put a ding on my teeth. Ding.
“Because now, HBCUs are shooting for those five-stars, those four-stars, those three-stars that they would have never fathomed that they could get.”