Deion Sanders’s tenure at Colorado has been unconventional. For instance, among the many subplots to his short time in Boulder, the most serious has been his health. It’s why he gave an exclusive interview to Sports Illustrated through a partnership with California Almonds because “I want them to catch me looking good from every angle.” It’s not every day a trade group for a tree nut calls a reporter to set up an interview, but it’s not every day someone with the notoriety of Sanders coaches college football.
The new Buffs head man has had 12 surgeries over the past two years to fix a blood clot issue that forced him to miss three games as the coach at Jackson State and caused the amputation of two toes—he quips that he stays grounded by being “eight toes” down. He plans to be out of his protective boot by the end of the weekend and put on a regular sneaker and walk comfortably. His goal is to lead Colorado out of the tunnel next Saturday with “a nice, cool, fly jog.”
But once Colorado’s on the field, beginning with its season opener against last year’s CFP runner-up TCU, the big question is what exactly it’s going to look like. Sanders says the normal things that college coaches do, that his team will be fast and physical with playmakers on both sides of the ball, but he holds close to the vest any specifics on schematics when asked. This is a higher level than the FCS ranks; his Tigers largely dominated for the past two seasons, and it will be a trial by fire in a deeply competitive Pac-12 right before the Buffs head to the Big 12. But he bristles at the notion that Jackson State should be regarded as a proving ground for him as a coach. He’d rather consider all his experiences, including his time as a youth and high school football coach as well as being a player.
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“Well, when you said a proving ground, I’m trying to figure out what do I have to prove?” Sanders says. “Like you said that I had to prove myself to somebody, like what do I have to prove? I’ve been in professional football for 14 years. I’ve been in college for another four years, so I think that gives me 17. I’ve been on television for 18 years. I think the credentials are good. I got a couple of jackets in the closet I ain’t buy. One of them, I think, is from a College Hall of Fame, the other one from an NFL Hall of Fame, and I’m thinking, one from high school in Florida State Hall of Fame. I think I got this, dawg.”
Things are certainly different around this program in many ways, as the interview was briefly interrupted because fellow Pro Football Hall of Famer Michael Irvin was saying goodbye after a day spent around the team. There are dozens of new faces thanks to the large roster overhaul done through the transfer portal. And all the new additions to the roster had to get used to a CU program that rapidly had much more attention on it than one would expect, with the combination of the Big 12 move and Sanders’s own fandom. In a way, as many coaches have been able to do before him, Sanders deflects almost all of the attention away from his team simply with his presence. And with nearly four decades of navigating media relations, Sanders is adept at crafting, maintaining and controlling his image.
“Well, when I feel like dealing with the media kind of attitude, we control what we control,” Sanders says. “We are not controlled, and we keep receipts. You can’t say what happened and we have receipts of what happened. You can’t say what was said and we have receipts of what was said. I’m being filmed right now. So everything we keep, and not only that, we’re doing a [documentary] as well. So everything is on camera. Everything is filmed.”
Yes, Sanders is image-conscious, but he certainly has every right to be as someone who has spent more time in the public eye than anyone currently in his position possibly ever has. That image is predicated on winning and being the best at whatever he tries, whether it’s football, professional baseball or coaching. He’s largely reached that pinnacle throughout his life, and that’s led him here on the cusp of leading Colorado out of the tunnel after a summer of hype, scrutiny, doubt and change.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Sanders says. “I just became Coach Prime to the nation, but I’ve been Coach Prime for probably the last 20 years, coaching youth football all the way up through high school and junior high. So I not only love what I do, but I do what I love, so I’m all in.”
