Jim Mora subtweets, then defends Deion Sanders on transfer policy

Deion Sanders has lost, or expelled, 23 players and counting since Colorado's spring game. That's an entire recruiting class gone in half a week's time. 

The college football world has kept a watchful eye on the Prime Experiment ever since Deion landed in Boulder in December, and the latest events have, understandably, caused the biggest stir since his arrival.

One of the 23-and-counting transfers, tight end Zachary Courtney, tweeted that he was at once told to transfer while, at the same time, has not been granted access to his practice film, per the instructions of "the head coach at CU."

A 3-star prospect out of Post, Texas, Courtney signed with CU in 2022 and redshirted in his first year on campus, so practice film is his only avenue to market himself to new coaching staffs. 

UConn head coach Jim Mora then weighed in, subtweeting Sanders.

In a response to ESPN's Ryan Clark, Mora then came to Sanders's defense, ending a potential war of words before it could begin.

The practice film issue notwithstanding, Courtney's experience is not an isolated one. Now-former Buffaloes explained to The Athletic how Sanders transformed CU's spring practices into an NFL-style training camp, cuts and all.

“He’s walking with me and said, ‘Hey buddy, you’re going to get cut today. I’m sorry to tell you this. I didn’t want you to hear it from Coach Prime. I wanted you to hear it from my mouth. I didn’t want to cut you, but we had to cut five offensive linemen, and you were the last one,’” offensive lineman Travis Gray told The Athletic on Tuesday evening.

When Gray walked into Sanders’ office, his head was down. Then he looked up.

“I was like, ‘Oh, God.’ I saw the mean mug in his face,” Gray said. “He told me, ‘You’re 6-foot-8, 320 pounds. I know in my heart of hearts a school is going to pick you up in the portal when you enter. Make your weaknesses your strengths and keep progressing. I hope you have a great future, it just won’t be here at the University of Colorado.’”

Like Courtney, Gray was a 3-star recruit who redshirted his true freshman season in 2022. Gray is the son of a member of CU's 1990 national championship team and his CU bio lists his hobbies as "football, watching film, studying defenses and working out."

It wasn't just redshirt freshmen that joined the post-spring exodus in Boulder. Defensive lineman Jalen Sami, the most experienced Buffalo with 36 career starts, also left the team. 

Colorado was down to just 20 remaining players from the 2022 team as of Monday night. CU signed 19 recruits in 2023 and added another 29 transfers, according to 247. That leaves roughly 17 spots to fill, and the staff is hard at work. Reports Wednesday morning linked Colorado to Alton McCaskill, who's leaving Houston after accounting for 1,172 yards and 18 touchdowns as a freshman in 2021. McCaskill missed the entire 2022 campaign with a torn ACL, but bounced back with an impressive performance this spring.

"He had a productive spring. He was happy. He broke the team down several times this spring, was smiling and then he came in on Monday and he was emotional and said he was leaving. I don't know where that came from," Dana Holgorsen told the local Fox affiliate in Houston. "I was a little shocked because the kid had a good spring and then all of a sudden, boom, it's over."

Colorado's 2023 schedule is one of the most difficult in college football. The Buffaloes open at defending national runner-up TCU, then hardly come up for air thereafter. Their home opener comes against former rival Nebraska in a battle to see which legacy brand re-tooled the fastest under a new coaching staff. The closest thing CU has to a sure thing comes to town Sept. 16 with a visit from Colorado State; the Rams went 3-9 in Jay Norvell's debut season, but could be primed for a major leap in Year 2. 

In Pac-12 play, Colorado gets Oregon, USC, Arizona State, Stanford, UCLA, Oregon State, Arizona, Washington State and Utah. 

Generously speaking, Colorado will be heavy underdogs against the Horned Frogs, the Ducks, the Trojans and the Utes. The other eight games could conceivably go either way. 

Colorado's starting 22 should be leaps-and-bounds improved from 2022 to '23. That's a virtual guarantee. But unless Prime and Company and find another 16-ish players just like McCaskill in the coming weeks, it's an open question as to how much depth the 2023 Buffaloes will have to navigate a schedule of 11 Power 5 opponents plus an in-state rival. As it stands Wednesday morning, all their depth was just told to get in the Portal. 

Update: Colorado has released a statement addressing the controversy.