Post by Matt Meyer | @Bluto51 on Twitter
Best wishes to Pro Football Hall of Famer and Colorado head coach Deion Sanders as he battles some serious health issues. Sanders was scheduled to have a pair of surgeries on Thursday to repair bent toes and to address a blood clot. Deion underwent another surgery recently to address blood clots in his left leg. Blood clots forced Sanders to have two toes and portions of his calf amputated a couple of years ago. Cruel twist of fate for a man who was one of the fastest football players God ever made to have this much trouble with his legs and feet. Here’s hoping the best for Prime.
One of the biggest stories in college football over the offseason was Sanders accepting the Colorado head coaching job. After guiding Jackson State to a 27-6 record over three seasons, Coach Prime moved to Boulder to resurrect the once powerful Buffaloes. Sanders immediately got the college football world’s attention with an eye popping speech in his first team meeting. Here’s a sampling:
“We got a few positions already taken care of because I’m bringing my luggage with me, and it’s Louis.”
“I’m coming, and when I get here, it’s gonna be change…go ahead and jump in that portal.”
“Those of you that we don’t run off, we’re going to try to make you quit.”
Turnover was promised, and turnover was delivered. According to Max Olson of The Athletic, by late April, 63 of Colorado’s 83 scholarship players from the 2022 season had left. Not that that’s too crushing of a blow; Colorado was 1-11 last season. Very difficult to gauge how the Buffs will do in 2023, but unquestionably, change was needed, and the winds of change have blown through Boulder.
Flash forward to Big 12 Media Days last week in Arlington. Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables said “We’re another year in establishing our standards and our culture and our values. That matters. A year ago, I challenged the guys. I wasn’t like Deion that gave guys a bunch of pink slips.” In another interview, Venables said “I gave guys 12 months of grace. I was unlike Deion.”
Lot to unpack here.
First of all, Deion Sanders was hired to be the head coach at Colorado. No matter the coach or the program, if someone is hired to be the coach, that person needs to run the program the best way he or she sees fit. That’s why you hire someone: to let him or her do their job. Coach Sanders will certainly do the job his way and I hope Colorado lets him work.
Secondly, there’s no question that Coach Prime’s approach will be used against him, both privately and, as we saw and heard last week, publicly. Anything goes on the recruiting trail, whether it’s right or wrong, true or false. I’d bet a lot of money that there have been coaches at multiple programs who when battling Colorado for a player, have told the player something along the lines of “Why would you want to go to Colorado? They’ll just give up on you too soon. They don’t care about their players, they won’t give you a fair shot to earn your way.” Sounds cruel, but things like that, and much worse, are said to kids in recruiting, whether accurate or not.
Third, there’s no reason for Coach Venables to mention Coach Sanders publicly. That doesn’t serve any positive purpose to the University of Oklahoma. Now, if OU and Colorado are battling for a kid in recruiting, battle away. It’s a dirty part of recruiting, one of many, but nobody ever claimed college football was clean. However, to publicly mention another program’s head coach by name in this context doesn’t do Venables any good.
If Venables wanted to say everything he said up until he mentioned Deion, fine. I can see where those that aren’t familiar with Venables and how he operates might interpret those comments as making excuses, but I don’t believe that. When you start publicly pointing a finger directly at another coach or program, like Nick Saban did last offseason with Texas A&M, you start treading into territory that’s better left unexplored. There’s a couple of proverbs in coaching that hold a lot of wisdom. One is “you coach your team, and I’ll coach mine.” College football head coaches have more than they can say grace over without criticizing others. Another such proverb is “there’s 131 FBS programs, and there’s 131 glass houses.” Start throwing stones out of your glass house and see what shatters.
Both Coach Sanders and Coach Venables have their own approach. I hope both of them have tremendous success.