Connell Maynor had just helped his Alabama A&M team dole out a record-setting offensive explosion in a win against rival Jackson State.
So Maynor, the Bulldogs' personable coach, wasn't about to ladle out any advice or sympathy for Deion Sanders, aka Coach Prime.
Assessing the 52-43 win with host Ted Dixie on his weekly coach's show, the Alabama A&M Football Review, Maynor was asked if it was hard to see the disappointment on the face of the opposition – in this case, Sanders – after such a game.
“Nope. Not when you gotta win or lose. Kill or be killed, you know what I'm saying,” Maynor said. “I just saw Prime jogging out, I met him out on the field, shook his hand and he said he looked forward to playing next year.
“So, I do too.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fBZBmdUoAu0
Dixie asked Maynor, whose team this week faces Alabama State in the “Magic City Classic” with the victor guaranteed a berth in the Southwest Athletic Conference Championship, if Sanders called him for advice, what would Maynor impart.
“He's got assistant coaches; he's got NFL coaches. He talks about how good his staff is and how good they are. So I'm sure that he can lean on those guys for advice,” Maynor said, beginning around the 15-minute mark of the show. “So he didn't call me. But, you know, he's the enemy. He's the enemy. I'm not going to give him advice.
“I'd have told him to recruit some more 5-stars. He's talking about all them four- and five-stars he recruits. You're not the only one recruiting five-stars- and four-stars; we do, too. Let's go. We got guys coming back next year, too. Everybody waiting for next year.”
Maynor dismissed the talk of next year and focused on the present.
“Well, we're playing right now. OK? Everybody likes their team at the beginning of the year,” he said. “It is what it is. I'm going to have different players out there next year, too. I'm not going to play with the exact same team. Let's go. Bring it. We're here. We ain't going nowhere.”
Maynor quickly shifted to this week's game against the rival Hornets, coached by his friend Donald Hill-Eley.
“Throw the records out and these two teams just go at each other,” Maynor said, laughing. “Coach Eley, we texted (over the weekend). We text every week, we talk every week.
“He already knows; he knows I'm coming to bust that head in.”