Deion Sanders defends son who trashed ex-teammate
On Monday, Max Olson of The Athletic published a big piece tracking down the 53 players who exited Colorado's roster in Deion Sanders's first seven months on the job.
Flipping the roster was inevitable for any coach who took the Colorado job in December of 2022. The Buffaloes went 1-11 that season, and the program posted one winning record in its last 14 (full) seasons. Rick George didn't hire Deion to maintain the status quo; the status quo was awful. Combined with the new rules in place, any coach would have, ahem, exchanged dozens of inherited players for new ones in attempt to put a competitive product on the field.
But Deion was uniquely brazen and callous in his intentions. "We got a few positions taken care of because I'm bringing my own luggage," he famously told the returning CU players in his first team meeting, "and it's Louis."
As Olson's article detailed, that blunt and callous attitude wasn't an act for the cameras.
The piece opens with dozens of players getting their walking papers the day after Colorado's sold-out, nationally televised spring game in April 2023. The following morning, one player said, the now-former Buffs were barred from returning to the locker room to collect their personal items.
“When you’re gone, you’re gone,” wide receiver Chase Sowell said.
Olson's article has generated lots of discussion on social media, particularly this quote from safety Xavier Smith:
“We sat on the sofa, and he’s talking to us, but he’s not even looking at us,” Smith said. “I’m looking Coach Kelly dead in his eyes. (Sanders) said he felt like I should hit the portal. He didn’t want me to waste a year thinking I could earn a spot.
“I was actually getting mad, like tears coming to my eyes. Because, bro, you never even tried to get to know me.”
Turns out, contempt for players who were on the team when Deion got to Boulder wasn't exclusive to the head coach.
"(I don't) even remember him (to be honest). Bro had to be very mid at best," Shedeur Sanders tweeted Tuesday.
When one Twitter user confronted Deion about Shedeur's cold disregard for his former teammates, the Colorado head coach shrugged it off.
Colorado's QB1/Son took his cues from his Head Coach/Father, who has treated players as expendable commodities from the very beginning.
“Let me tell you this, because this is something you may not know,” Sanders said on The Dan Patrick Show last November, in a quote unearthed by Olson “Maybe 20 kids we may have sat down with and said, ‘We may head in a different direction; I don’t know if this is gonna work out.’ Everybody else quit. They quit. You can’t hold me responsible.”
More than a year later, Colorado is still churning through players. The entire 31-man 2022 recruiting class is now gone, and the top two players from the 2023 class have left this spring as well.
A year and a half into the Prime Experiment at Colorado, churning through players like they're digital creations in the coming EA Sports video game has been the defining tribute of the Coach Prime culture.
An example: After replacing the entire offensive line from 2022 to 2023, Colorado will once again replace the entire offensive line from 2023 to 2024.
The consequences of such an abrasive culture will play a key role in accomplishing a key goal of Coach Prime this season, and perhaps the key goal of this season: securing Shedeur's spot as a top-5 pick in next spring's draft.
That will be difficult to do behind a rebuilt offensive line, playing with a rebuilt running back room, while supporting a roster pieced together on the fly. That will also be difficult to do when NFL teams learn of Shedeur's disregard for his own teammates.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.
