SEATTLE — Way back in another life, I covered Deion Sanders for a half-season as a beat writer for the San Francisco Giants. The year was 1995, and the Giants had acquired Deion in a July trade with the Reds, trying to capitalize on his local popularity as a Super Bowl winner that year with the 49ers.
Sanders didn't make much of an impact on a last-place Giants team and never played again for the 49ers, opting instead to sign with their archrival, the Dallas Cowboys, with whom he won another Super Bowl the next year. But those of us who covered the team were genuinely surprised at how unlike his image he turned out to be. Dubbed "Prime Time" and "Neon Deion," Sanders was quiet, reserved and respectful, earning considerable affection from his teammates, a group that included pre-juicing Barry Bonds.
The mellow version of Sanders I witnessed up close is certainly not the one that is rocking the college football world — and shaking up the dynamics of the Pac-12 — as the new coach at Colorado.
Coach Prime, as he prefers to be called, definitely is trying to stand out these days. And succeeding wildly, with a, well, theatrical introductory news conference, followed by a stunning speech to the Buffaloes squad in which he encouraged players from this past season's 1-11 team to transfer so he could restock the roster with his guys.
"When I get here, it's going to be change," Sanders told them (and everyone who watched the video that was immediately posted on social media). "So I want y'all to get ready. Go ahead and jump in that [transfer] portal and do whatever you're going to [do], because the more of you jump in the more room you make."
Say what you will about Sanders' style — The New York Times described him this week as "a sports mercenary with a carnival barker's bearing, a roadside preacher's panache and a talent for winning" — the Pac-12 just got immensely more interesting with Coach Prime's arrival.
It has been easy for the rest of the country to write off the conference as a largely irrelevant and mostly inferior brand of football. But Sanders will force people to pay attention by the sheer force of his personality.
Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff, for one, could barely contain his glee, believing the attention Sanders will garner for the conference should help spike the payout of the vital-media rights package he's in the process of negotiating.
"He absolutely adds value," Kliavkoff told The Athletic.
And opposing Pac-12 coaches, though none will admit it, must be wary of Sanders' recruiting prowess. Colorado has been a reliable conference doormat, with just one winning full season (and seven years of eight or more losses) since joining the Pac in 2011. Speaking to the team, Sanders promised that the turnaround will be immediate — with or without (mostly without) the players to whom he was speaking.
"It's going to be a different place, a different feel, a different attitude, a different energy, a different work ethic, a different want, a different hunger, a different desire, a different need, a different capacity. ... There is not going to be any more mediocrity, period," Sanders said to the players.
" ... Some of y'all that really got it, that really want it, that really deserve it, and you've got to play beside a fool that don't want it, don't deserve it, that don't even love it, I promise you it's my job to get rid of them."
Sanders — the Buffalos' fifth full-time coach since 2012 — worked wonders in his three-year stint at Jackson State. He was 23-2 the past two seasons after going 4-3 in his shortened first year during the pandemic. The Tigers are coming off a 12-0 season for their second consecutive SWAC title, with one more game to come in the Celebration Bowl against North Carolina Central on Dec. 17.
Sanders says he'll coach Jackson State in that game, but in the meantime he's doing heavy-duty recruiting for the Buffaloes. The day after he was hired, five-star recruit Winston Watkins, first cousin of Sammy Watkins, flipped his commitment from Texas A&M to Colorado. A top running back prospect, Dylan Edwards, decommited from Notre Dame and is said to be eyeing Colorado.
Sanders' first eye-catching moment at Jackson State was getting the No. 1 recruit in the country for 2022, defensive back Travis Hunter, to switch his commitment from Sanders' alma mater, Florida State, to Jackson State. That was unprecedented for an FCS, historically Black university. And now Hunter is widely expected to join Sanders at Colorado via the transfer portal.
He won't be alone in that regard. University officials have vowed to make it less onerous for potential transfers to move their credits to the university. One of them will be Sanders' son, Shedeur Sanders, a star at Jackson State who was introduced by his dad thusly to Colorado players: "This is your quarterback."
Sanders hastened to add, "He has to earn it." (But somehow, I like his chances.) Sanders then went on to say, "about 10 more of them [are] coming," referring to his Jackson State roster.
"We got a few positions already taken care of," he told the team, "because I'm bringing my luggage with me, and it's Louis [Vuitton]."
Sanders is poised to hit the transfer portal with a vengeance. Two days ago he tweeted that he is "looking for Game Changers on the Offensive & Defensive Line" and included the tagline "I AIN'T HARD TO FIND."
Finally, Sanders is said to have created a huge buzz among blue-chip high-school prospects as the recruiting wars go down to the wire in advance of early signing day Dec. 21.
"I'm going to get back on a plane and go and have the biggest recruiting weekend they've ever had in the history of Colorado. That's how it's gonna go down," Sanders said this week, as quoted by Brian Howell of Buffzone.
All this is not to say that Sanders will turn Colorado into a national power — though that is clearly his intention. Some people believe Sanders is all bluster, and his brash ways will backfire spectacularly. He has yet to coach a single game at the FBS level. There are many inherent obstacles at Colorado, and Sanders doesn't have much of a talent base to work from. Yet.
But Coach Prime is making people take notice. He received a hero's welcome when introduced at the Buffalos' men's basketball game Thursday. Colorado is receiving the kind of attention they haven't had since the Bill McCartney glory days in the late '80s and early '90s.
"In the course of one afternoon, the most relevant program in the country is Colorado — because of one guy," Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt, a former Colorado quarterback, said Monday on his podcast.
Can Sanders follow through on his promises and turn Colorado into a Pac-12 force — just as USC and UCLA are preparing to leave the conference? Washington and Washington State obviously have a vested interest in the answer to that question. And however it turns out, it's not going to be dull.
