Deion Sanders, Colorado still have more questions than answers

I have watched more college football in the last four seasons than I watched in the previous 10. The reason is one person: Deion Sanders, first at Jackson State where he flew the flag for HBCU football and now at the University of Colorado where he energized a floundering football program.

On Thursday, Colorado opened its season with a nail-biting 31-26 home-opening victory over North Dakota State, the Buffaloes’ first victory since Oct. 7, 2023, when they defeated Arizona State. I watched every minute of Thursday’s game, and I’ll watch every minute of Colorado’s next few games and will be there in person for more than a few.

What is it that we’re trying to determine and what are the questions we’re trying to answer? Whether Coach Prime is a great college football coach? A better promoter than coach? Will Colorado have a winning season? Will Colorado make a bowl game? Finally, with his son Shedeur Sanders and potential Heisman trophy candidate Travis Hunter set to enter the NFL draft in 2025, will Sanders stay at Colorado beyond this season?

Some of my colleagues called Thursday’s season opener the most important game of Coach Prime’s coaching career.

Respectfully, no.

Thursday’s game was the most important game until the next game. Then the next. Then the next.

All Colorado proved on Thursday was that it had two more super NFL ready players than North Dakota State: Hunter and quarterback Shedeur Sanders — Hunter, a spectacular two-way player and Sanders a legitimate top 5 quarterback candidate in the draft. Hunter caught seven passes for 132 yards and three touchdowns. On defense, he played more than 40 snaps at cornerback.

Shedeur picked up where he left off from last season and that is good and bad news. Sanders plays a unique brand of hero ball and largely it has worked. He has thrown 100 touchdowns in his career and finished last season with 27 touchdowns and an impressive 69% completion percentage. But it comes at a cost.

Last season he was the most sacked quarterback in big time college football and took so many shots attempting to make plays that he was forced to miss the final game of the season. On Thursday against North Dakota State, Sanders was sacked just once and kept plays alive. He also took a number of shots just as he released the ball. Will he be able to last an entire season playing his swashbuckling style of quarterback? And can Colorado win if Shedeur plays any other way?

After the game, Shedeur was criticized by his dad, Coach Prime, for launching a long pass to LaJohntay Wester, in the fourth quarter when the offense should have been running out the clock. But Sanders rationalized that his son was simply trying to be a good teammate by allowing Wester to get in on the action on a night when Hunter and Jimmy Horn Jr. were having big nights.

“Shedeur is such a good kid, sometimes it costs him because at the end of the game, we just want to run the ball,” Sanders said, rationalizing his son’s poor judgement.

The relationship between Sanders and his sons, Shedeur and Shilo, has been the most fascinating aspect of the Coach Prime phenomenon at Jackson State and now at Colorado. Sanders has coached his sons at every level of football and in his candid moments Sanders admits that the line between father and coach has often blurred.

This is why I’d like to see Prime coach after Shedeur and Hunter — his adopted son — leave for the NFL. Only then will we get an accurate picture of who Sanders truly is as coach, though I’m not so sure that is high up on Prime’s list of priorities. Coaching his sons has been such a unique experience that life after they go may be anti-climactic.

But there will be time enough for that conjecture.

Right now, there is a long season to play and Prime, Shedeur and Hunter are carrying a shared burden of proof. Hunter is out to show that he is a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate. Shedeur is out to prove that he should be one of the first three quarterbacks taken in the 2025 NFL draft.

Of course, Sanders is in position to prove that he is more than the football equivalent of a snake oil salesman whose primary stock-in-trade is promoting his program. He can show that he is a is a tactician who can match wits with the nation’s elite coaches.

You do that by winning.

Coach Prime is also in a position to prove that his scorched earth approach to building rosters is effective as well. Sanders is not one to plant seeds and watch them grow. He prefers to plant full-grown trees.

Last year, he made news and hurt a lot of feeling by drastically turning over his roster. He brought in 68 new scholarship players, 47 of whom transferred in from other four-year programs.

He did it again this season, bringing in 50 new scholarship players including 39 new transfers. Will it work? We’ll see.

What complicates the evaluation of Deion Sanders purely on football criteria is that he does more than coach football. He does other stuff as well and I take him at his word that he is concerned with the wellbeing of the young men he coaches. Not necessarily the ones he chases off, but the ones he coaches.

Last week, for example, we learned that Sanders partnered with a bank to open up “529 accounts” for the eight fathers and a soon-to-be-fathers on his team. Each account will begin with $2,121 (in recognition of Sanders’ number during his NFL playing days). A 529 account is a tax-advantaged savings account designed to be used for the beneficiary’s education expenses. The thinking is that if the players can begin to regularly contribute $200 of their own money into the account they can eventually pay for their child’s college education.

The larger issue surrounding the University of Colorado, and its football program is how free is the press that covers Coach Prime.

Closely tied to that is whether the media is buying what Deion is selling. Sanders, like so many college coaches — HBCU, FBS, FCS — tend to be, or at least aspire to be, dictators. Sanders has had a prickly relationship with the media and has shrewdly created his own media machine to present his story the way he wants it presented.

In Colorado, he deals with the press by picking and choosing, singling out those entities he feels are too harsh and critical. This includes banning a Denver Post columnist whose criticism Sanders felt had become too personal. With the University’s blessing, the reporter was banned from asking questions.

In an ideal, all-for-one-one-for-all world, when the Denver Post columnist was banned, the entire press corp would have objected and responded by boycotting Sanders. Imagine: Prime walking into a press conference with no cameras, no reporters, no microphones. Colorado is riding a wave of regeneration precisely because the head football coach attracted cameras and microphones. Imagine if suddenly none came.

In fact, Colorado doesn’t have to imagine. The university knows how that would feel because it experienced it in the years before Prime came: lethargy, indifference, darkness.

In any event, a media boycott will never happen and therein lies the rub: the media can’t afford to boycott Coach Prime. He is a ratings bonanza. Right now, he is news, and we cover the news.

We all have our standards. Sanders and the university have established standards for coverage they consider “crossing the line.” I have my standards for what I consider compelling news.

Coach Prime won at Jackson State. He talked about Black empowerment and institution building, but he won. The news in college football is whether Coach Prime can lead Colorado to a winning record and a bowl game. The Buffaloes will be compelling if they win, run of the mill and boring if they lose. Pure and simple.

One game down, 11 more to go.