Deion Sanders is many things; football coach and Renaissance man included.
Coach Prime also is quick to tell you he isn’t a liar.
No, he most definitely is not.
And after encouraging University of Colorado players to “jump in that” NCAA Transfer Portal from Prime’s very first meeting as a Power-5 head coach, Buffaloes players are departing the program in record numbers after Saturday’s spring game concluded Colorado’s camp.
Per NCAA sources, the Colorado football program has seen 29 players enter the NCAA’s Portal since the spring transfer window opened April 15; some 15 Buffaloes entered their names Monday as potential transfers, just 48 hours after Sanders wrapped up his opening camp atop the Colorado program before a sold-out crowd at Folsom Field.
Almost 45 Colorado football players have entered the NCAA Transfer Portal since Sanders was hired in December.
Coach Prime foreshadowed as much in his post-game press conference Saturday.
“Well, this is the genesis of the new era, the new thing,” said Sanders, who zoomed through the coaching ranks to the Colorado job after leading Jackson State, a down-on-its-luck HBCU program, to back-to-back Southwestern Athletic Conference titles. “This was the beginning of everything, the direction that we go right now. You all know that we’re gonna move on from some … some of the team members and we’re going to reload and get some kids that we really identify with.
“This is process is going to be quick, fast but we’re going to get it done. I think I’m meeting … I don’t know how many dern kids and families I gotta meet after this, but they’re waiting for me to get up there and we’re going to roll.”
Sanders said he embraced this element of the Colorado rebuild and proclaimed his background made him uniquely qualified to thrive in this situation.
“I love it, I mean I love every dern minute of it. I love it, I love. I sit in all three seats,” Sanders said. “What do you mean by that Coach Prime? I’m glad you asked. I was a kid that was recruited, I was a parent sitting by the kid when my sons were recruited, now I’m the coach recruiting the kid and talking to the parent and telling them the God-honest truth with no game.
“No game whatsoever, straight up.”
It was in December when Sanders, never one to mince his words, imparted the following message on stunned Colorado players shortly after Sanders was introduced as head coach for that first team meeting:
“We’ve got a few positions already taken care of because I’m bringing my luggage with me,” Sanders told the team inside Colorado’s meeting room, the omnipresent video crew chronicling the moment. “And it’s Louis (Vuitton). I’m coming. It ain’t going to be no more of this mess that these wonderful fans, this student body, and some of your parents have put up with for probably two decades now. I’m coming. And when I get here, there’s going to be change.
“So I want y’all to get ready to go ahead and jump in that Portal. Do whatever you’re going to get. Because the more of you who jump in, the more room you make. Because we’re bringing kids that are smart, tough, fast, disciplined, with character.”
Despite being hired just days before the December 2022 early signing period for the 2023 class, Sanders & Co. amassed what proved to be 247Sports’ No. 21 national class with 19 underclassmen signees; the Buffaloes also garnered the site’s No. 1-ranked transfer signing class with their 29-man haul.
Five-star ’23 signee Cormani McClain of Lakeland, Florida, who signed with Coach Prime and Colorado after long being tied to Mario Cristobal’s Miami Hurricanes program, represented the program’s highest-rated consensus signee in 15 years.
Though Colorado suffered a prospect’s decommitment over the weekend, some 70 recruits filed into Folsom Field despite frigid temperatures and heavy snow to check out Sanders’s first outing as Colorado’s head coach.
“That’s all?,” Sanders, wearing a white cowboy hat, dark sunglasses and an “Ain’t Hard 2 Find” hoodie, replied when asked about the message of the 70 recruits on hand. “Because some flights got cancelled that’s why it was just 70.
“You’ve got to understand a lot of coaches attack it differently. Oftentimes the kid is holding all the cards and you’re trying to see if he’s going to choose you. We’re trying to see if we really want him. Because it’s a certain standard that we have. When I talk about smart, tough, fast, disciplined with character, I’m not playing. I’m serious about that.”
The Coach Prime Colorado era officially kicks off in 131 days, when the Buffaloes visit defending College Football Playoff runner-up TCU; their first home game under Sander is Sept. 9 against longtime rival Nebraska, which is being led by new coach Matt Rhule.