Deion Sanders described the team he inherited at Colorado as a “mess” that was rife with “junk” and “foolishness,” prompting him to “get rid” of it to the point where only he now only has about 10 scholarship players returning from last year’s team out of a roster of 85.
Sanders, who was hired as Colorado’s football coach in December, made those comments in an interview published online Monday with Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt, a former Colorado quarterback. “Coach Prime” also told Klatt that he has assembled so much talent to replace those players that he expects his new team to be able to compete with TCU in the season opener Sept. 2 despite being a three-touchdown underdog at the home of last season’s No. 2 team.
“I want it now, and I want it all,” Sanders said.
What did he do to his roster?
Sanders has brought in 46 transfers from other four-year schools to build his roster, including 10 from Jackson State, where Sanders coached since 2020. Another 17 recruits are coming from high school, along with four from junior colleges. He said he has held back a handful of scholarships to award to non-scholarship players or other players who earn them to fill out his 85-scholarship limit.
The roster overhaul was unprecedented in college football and earned the Buffaloes a No. 1 national ranking for their transfer class, largely because of its sheer size, according to 247 Sports.
But it’s also brought some criticism for seeming too callous toward the returning players, who went 1-11 last season.
What was the matter?
Sanders responded to that criticism in the interview by describing what he walked into during his first day on the job. That was the day he warned his players that he would try to make them quit and replace them with his own Louis Vuitton “luggage.”
After delivering that message, he said he walked into a different players’ meeting room and saw were playing music and looking at their phones.
“I go into this one room and music is playing,” Sanders said. “I said, ‘Excuse me. What is this?'”
“Uh, coach, we always bring the boom box into our position meeting room,” a player replied, according to Sanders.
‘I said, ‘Have you lost your mind?” Sanders said. “’If you ever bring music into one of my meetings, I promise you we will never see each other again in life.’
“That’s the kind of junk that was going on, and I get rid of that and you’ve got a problem?” Sanders said. “They had no idea what was going on in this mess with that type of foolishness, after I just got finished challenging you as young men, telling you this room right here will not be the room we go to Fort Worth with. I promise you that. It’s going to be a lot of changes. It’s up to you to be one of those changes, and you gave it to me. You put it on a tee.”
Why is he getting so much attention?
Sanders described the roster overhaul in biblical terms, describing it as an “Exodus” that is part of his “Genesis” in Boulder. Along with his hiring there, it’s been one of the most intriguing storylines of the offseason in college football, prompting Fox to put the Buffs in its prestigious “Big Noon” window for their first two games of the season – at TCU and then Sept. 9 vs. Nebraska in Boulder. It will be the first time in school history that the Buffs’ first two games aired on national network television.
Klatt will be there with play-by-play announcer Gus Johnson.
“Let’s face it: Our premium window is going to be because of you,” Klatt told him.
“I’m not going to say that,” Sanders replied.
“I know you aren’t. I will, though,” Klatt told him.
Klatt’s employer views Sanders as that big of a marquee attraction right now. Sanders is a flamboyant former two-sport superstar who is trying to turn around a terrible team overnight.
“At the end of the day, we’re looking for the games that are going to generate the most viewership, and we believe fans want to tune into the biggest storylines and Coach Prime is the story right now,” Fox Sports vice president Derek Crocker told USA TODAY Sports in a recent interview.
The question is how competitive his team will be with so many new pieces. But Sanders dismissed any doubt about it.
“It’s very rare that you have really good talent and a really good coaching staff and you don’t win,” Sanders said.
He also said he knows he can’t do such a drastic overhaul next year.
“That would mean we missed,” he said. “That (would ) mean we didn’t assess talent properly.”
He doesn’t think he did. Asked if he thought he could compete with TCU in the first game, Sanders didn’t flinch.
“I don’t think. I know.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
