Deion Sanders is all about NIL.
But Colorado’s Coach Prime likewise is making sure his players – or college athletes, in general – understand that earning money via endorsement deals and Name, Image and Likeness opportunities also carries extra scrutiny for those athletes.
In TIME magazine’s Friday cover story, Prime told the venerable publication that roster turnover via the NCAA’s more relaxed transfer rules in recent years is here to stay.
He also said that means roster spots will not be guaranteed – especially as NIL money further changes the landscape. Buffaloes stars Shedeur Sanders, Coach Prime’s son and the team’s quarterback, as well as two-way sensation Travis Hunter are among myriad Colorado players with lucrative NIL deals.
“They want to be treated like pros, but you’ve got to understand, now there’s scrutiny like the pros,” Deion Sanders told TIME. “There's cuts. There's dissatisfaction. So, you can have a pity-party and want it both ways.
“‘Well, I'm still a kid.’ ‘No, no. You’ve got a Benz parked outside.’”
Coach Prime has overhauled the chassis of the Colorado program in short order; the 3-2 Buffaloes already have logged multiple weeks in the national top-25 rankings in this season’s opening half and could climb one more win closer to bowl elgibility Saturday night with a win at rebuilding Arizona State.
Win or lose, Deion Sanders emphasized belief in his process to the publication.
We’re being unapologetically who we are,” Coach Prime said. “You can tell, by everything that we're accomplishing right now, that we're headed in the proper direction at a speed that is undeniably a lot more expeditious than many people would have suspected.
“Shoot, this is going to be good. It’s just like the trailer of a movie you’re seeing. Just wait until you see the whole dern movie.”
As he has led the program further and further from last season’s 1-11 bottom-out that resulted in the school’s dismissal of former coach Karl Dorrell, Coach Prime said his program also has instilled hope in people far and wide – and he used a parable from the Bible to illustrate his point.
“People are drawn to hope, man,” Deion Sanders said. “Shoot, we’re David. We ain’t got but a couple of stones here. We’re playing against Goliath every week.
“We were 1-11, and now you’re tripping about us? We’re pulling people in, man, that just want a chance to be seen, to be heard, to be noticed, to be recognized.”