BOULDER — If football was a war of words, Deion Sanders would be a hammer lock as coach of this and every year, because the CU Buffs might never lose a game.
In the World According to Prime, the future’s so bright for the Buffs, he’s got to wear shades. Indoors. During the middle of the day. If there are unrealistic expectations for a team that finished with a record of 1-11 last season, it’s only because Sanders has whipped CU fans into a frenzy.
“We’re going to win. We’re going to win. We’re going to win,” Sanders declared Friday. “I don’t know how to say it. I wish I could say it in several different languages, but we’re going to win.”
That solid-gold whistle dangling from Coach Prime’s neck? It’s a fine piece of jewelry befitting a brash coach who tackled what appears to be a dead-end job at the University of Colorado, losers of 68% of its games since 2006, with the full intention of making everybody in this woebegone football program filthy rich.
“Everybody’s chasing a bag,” Sanders said.
Coach Prime is writing a new definition of team unity: When the Buffs win, everybody gets rich. Playing for the glory of the alma mater is dead. It’s all about the Benjamins. Rather than run from this uncomfortable truth, the new CU coach embraces it. Greed is good. Ain’t that America?
“That’s life, man,” Sanders said. “We all want to be comfortable, right? You know the only thing that separates me from many people, or the affluent from people, is having the option. I have the option to go to the car lot and get what I want to get. I have the option to go to a shopping plaza and get what I want.”
In college football, the revolution will be written on a black and gold hoodie.
And it can be found front-and-center at the entrance to a fan gear store that sits pretty next to Folsom Field. What are all the cool kids going to be wearing at CU’s home stadium this autumn? A hoodie that features a school logo with the iconic Buffalo plastered across the chest. Immediately below the logo, in block letters too huge to ignore are the words: COACH PRIME.
The cost to look as hip as Sanders? $84.99.
Old school fuddy-duddies in the college game are offended by how Sanders looks, how he talks, how he messes with tradition and how he goes about the business of building a team.
“I. Don’t. Care,” Sanders said. “Look at me. What about me would make you think that I care about your opinion of me. Your opinion of me is not the opinion I have of myself. You ain’t make me, so you can’t break me. You didn’t build me, so you can’t kill me.”
The case can be made that CU was the worst major college football team in the nation a year ago. The Buffs could not compete. They were annihilated by an average score of 45-15.
Sanders ransacked that lousy roster and brought in playmakers, notably two-way star Travis Hunter and quarterback Shedeur Sanders, who just happens to be the Son of Prime.
Here’s what I wonder: The Buffs have flash. Football, however, is often a battle won in the trenches. Does Colorado possess the muscle in the offensive line to fight bullies ranked in the Top 25?
There were only a few brief seconds of doubt during a 20-minute sermon Sanders delivered Friday. So I took note when Coach Prime gave this caveat to the big season he anticipates from his son under center.
“The main thing, really? We’ve just got to protect the kid,” Sanders said. “If we can keep him upright …”
When he stands before his team in a meeting, Sanders is framed by the giant words: “I BELIEVE!”
While I can buy the idea that these Buffs could go over the betting line of 3.5 victories established for them by Las Vegas wise guys, it’s nearly unfathomable to think CU could be bowl-bound in Sanders’ first season.
A 55-year-old coach who has never led a team to victory against an FBS opponent scoffs at the idea his inexperience on the sideline might be a detriment to the Buffs.
“I’m not new to this, I’m true to this,” said Sanders, who led Jackson State to a 27-6 record in three seasons before the Buffs took a gamble on him. “I’ve been doing this for a minute. I know you think I haven’t been at this level for a minute, but I’ve been in football for the last how many years? A long time.”
The room glows like the sun and twinkles like the stars as soon Neon Deion walks in. He can sell. He can preach. He can vibe. He can do it all as well or better than any ball coach in the country.
It’s far less than a stretch to say the Buffs would not be heading to the Big 12 Conference, with Sanders leading the funeral parade to the Pac-12’s grave, if he had not been hired in December.
But can Coach Prime beat Nebraska, much less Oregon or Southern Cal?
We’re fixing to find out.
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