College Sports

Prime Time: All The Ways Deion Sanders Is Revolutionizing College Football

Darren - October 6, 2023

College Sports

Prime Time: All The Ways Deion Sanders Is Revolutionizing College Football

Darren - October 6, 2023

Family Affair

One of the most controversial elements of Coach Prime’s new roster is the arguable nepotism. Their starting quarterback, Shadeur Sanders, is Coach Prime’s son and an elite recruit with Heisman aspirations. Meanwhile, they also signed another of Sanders’s sons, Shilo. Prime’s daughter Shelomi plays basketball for the school too.

Then there’s his other son, Deion Sanders Jr., who runs the team’s most successful YouTube channel. Sanders even ranks his children as he picks his current favorite. It’s wild and some people don’t like it but his family isn’t going anywhere. As long as he continues revolutionizing college football, does it matter?

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Coaching Experience

A head coach is only as good as the staff he surrounds himself with. Sanders’s critics believe that he has a bloated sense of self-importance. But the Super Bowl winner is canny enough to hire a great team. Offensive Coordinator Sean Lewis leads the Buffaloes’ offense (via Sportskeeda).

Meanwhile, Defensive guru Charles Kelly is a veteran of the game with 35 years of experience. He also worked under Nick Saban, arguably the greatest college coach in NCAA history. Several of Sanders’ assistants worked with him at Jackson State. This shows that Coach Prime inspires loyalty in his ranks.

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TCU Win

Colorado shocked the NCAA landscape when they pulled off a victory over TCU in Coach Prime’s debut. It was a fairytale start for the Buffaloes after months of anticipation. Many people called him a fraud and a primadonna. But Sanders proved that he is revolutionizing football.

Their narrow 45-42 victory against a tough TCU outfit showed grit, skill, and determination (via ESPN). QB Shadeur Sanders said: “A lot of you didn’t believe in us. It’s crazy because you just got to understand our coach, Coach Prime, my dad, everywhere he went, he was a winner. Every game, every opportunity, he took advantage of.”

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Massive Brand

Colorado didn’t realize how lucrative the Sanders appointment would be. But he’s a goldmine for the school despite signing a $30 million contract. USA Today estimated that he will bring at least $280 million to Colorado. They sold out their season tickets already because everybody wants a piece of Coach Prime.

Meanwhile, 35 million people across the nation tuned in to watch their first four games. It’s an incredible leap and it’s all because of Sanders. When the President of Nike shows up in Colorado and hugs the head coach, it shows his influence. This is a level we’ve never seen before.

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The Swagger

Even when Sanders and the Buffaloes lose, he maintains his swagger. Oregon’s head coach Dan Lanning dismissed his opposite number before their September game. He said that Colorado was ‘playing for clicks, we’re playing for wins.’ It was a great line and the Ducks justified it by winning handily.

However, Sanders deflected the blame away from his team. He took responsibility and acknowledged that he had a target on his back. “Teams are trying to beat me,” he told The Athletic. “They aren’t trying to beat our team. That’s what it really is. It is what it is. I signed up for it.”

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Ruthless Operator

Everybone is focusing on how Sanders took advantage of the transfer portal. They’re saying that the Buffalos are buying success but that’s not entirely accurate. One of the reasons why he’s revolutionizing college football is because he’s ruthless. He dumped more than 50 players as he overhauled the roster.

Coach Prime explained: “You take a team that’s won one game, and you fire the whole coaching staff. So, who did the coaching staff recruit? The kids. So, the kids are just as much to blame as the coaching staff. And I came up to the conclusion that a multitude of them couldn’t help us get to where we wanted to go.”

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National Attention

It’s insane that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is hanging out in Boulder because of Coach Prime. The Rock is one of the most famous men on the planet but he’s casually become a member of Sanders’ entourage. This shows the level of attention that Coach Prime and CU are achieving right now (via Fox Sports).

Colorado is responsible for five of the eight most-watched games in 2023. Even if people didn’t want Sanders to win, they couldn’t resist watching. When The Rock is almost reducing Sanders to tears with incredible speeches things are going right. This is drama not just college football.

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Business Model

We spoke about the contentious way that Sanders used the transfer portal to rebuild his roster. This won national attention and criticism, including from Connecticut State Senator Chris Murphy. The influential politician said this was bad for the sport because they treated scholarship athletes like employees.

Murphy said: “The NCAA says players aren’t employees except for their coaches all treat players like employees. Sanders is in the process of firing half of his team, kicking them off their scholarships because they aren’t performing. That’s employment (via The Ringer).”

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Trailblazer

Make no mistake, Sanders is a trailblazer. It says a lot that some people are putting him in the conversation to win National Coach of the Year. This is unlikely but not impossible if turns Colorado into a nine-win program after going 1-11 in 2022. However, his long-term impact on the sport’s culture is more important.

Black high school coaches say that Sanders gives them hope that they have a place in the sport. Meanwhile, young athletes also love it because they feel like Sanders understands them better than other coaches would. It’s amazing and one of the greatest ways he’s revolutionizing football (via Andscape).

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Taking Action

Coach Prime is also forcing the NCAA to address some of the flaws in the NIL system. None of the other head coaches in college football bring the same levels of fame or personality. He is using this to maximum effect by using photoshoots to promote Louis Vuitton and Lamborghini.

Now the NCAA wants to shut him down by only allowing photoshoots on official visits. They don’t want schools exploiting loopholes and making money out of their potential recruits by flirting with luxury brands. It may not be easy to enforce but it’s something they never considered before (via Sports Illustrated).

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Breath Of Fresh Air

Let’s be real for a moment: everybody loves to jump onto a bandwagon. Sanders is catnip for journalists and media members because he is revolutionizing football through his cult of personality. He is making the sport interesting again and that’s such an underrated quality.

Some people love him while others hate everything that he represents. But they’re all tuning in and watching the Buffaloes play their games. It’s a remarkable story but the weirdest part is that it has never happened before. Sanders is here to stay and college football is better for it overall (via CBS News).

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