Sources: Colorado coach Deion Sanders on verge of adding Alabama assistant, eyes other hires for Buffaloes

Deion Sanders is the splash hire for the Colorado Buffaloes football program, but Sanders isn’t expected to be the only headlining addition in Boulder, Colorado.

Multiple sources this weekend told FootballScoop that University of Alabama assistant defensive coordinator Charles Kelly, who coaches the Tide’s safeties on Nick Saban’s staff, intends to join Sanders’s Colorado staff in a top-level, coordinator role.

Though Kelly never has worked directly with Sanders, he coached at Florida State – Coach Prime’s alma mater – for five seasons with Jimbo Fisher, the last four of them as Fisher’s defensive coordinator for the Seminoles. It was at FSU that Kelly worked alongside Tim Brewster for all five of their seasons in Tallahassee, Florida.

Kelly has been on Saban’s staff the past four years after a one-year stint on failed Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt’s staff. His first big-time break in college football came with a seven-year run as an assistant coach at Georgia Tech.

Brewster, who’s spent the past year as Coach Prime’s tight ends coach at undefeated Jackson State, will accompany Sanders for a staff spot in the Buffaloes’ program.

Sources in the Southwestern Athletic Conference on Saturday told FootballScoop that Sanders was expected to take additional staff members from Jackson State to Colorado; those staff members are slated to include the Tigers’ current defensive coordinator Dennis Thurman, a former nine-year NFL veteran who has turned the Tigers’ defensive groups into among the nation’s best at the Football Championship Subdivision level; running backs coach Gary “Flea” Harrell; first-year JSU offensive play-caller Brett Bartolone; and off-the-field, Otis Ridley – JSU’s current director of player personnel – is seen as a top choice to join Sanders in a similar role within the Buffs’ program.

Harrell had a brief professional career in both the NFL, with the New York Giants, as well as in the Canadian Football and World Football leagues. He’s previously been a head coach at the FCS level and started to carve an upward path in coaching when he joined Lane Kiffin’s Florida Atlantic University staff in January 2017.

A former Mike Leach protégé at Washington State who shifted to coaching after an injury ended his playing career, Bartolone has been widely praised this season by Sanders for turning around the Tigers’ stagnant offense and helping JSU quarterback Shedeur Sanders, Coach Prime’s son, rewrite the school record books.

Further, Prime took corners coach Kevin Mathis and linebackers coach Andre Hart with him last night to Colorado. Stay tuned for more on their roles. 

Sanders’s announcement Saturday night that he had accepted the Colorado position, followed by the school’s own press release that formally announced Coach Prime’s hiring, already has had reverberations on the recruiting trail. Robert Lockhart, a three-star wide receiver prospect in the Class of 2023 who previously had verbally committed to Sanders and Jackson State, announced late Saturday night that his recruiting was “100% back open.”

A Fairburn, Georgia, native, it’s worth noting that among the verbal offers Lockhart already held was one from … the University of Colorado.

More to come on this one throughout the day. As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest coaching news. 

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