Colorado, Deion Sanders Update | 02/05/24
The Colorado buffalo The football schedule has been a hot topic this week an article written by Max Olson of The Athletic. It detailed the exodus from Colorado's mass transfer portal last season and included quotes from players who were essentially cut by the head coach Deion Sanders.
55 players entered the transfer portal from Colorado last offseason, and 44 have joined the club so far this offseason. Many are questioning Sanders' roster management methods and how the Buffaloes have responded to the recent discourse, which On3's Andy Staples commented on on Thursday's episode Andy Staples On3.
“Now I have a slightly different opinion about how Deion cuts players than I think a lot of people do. My opinion on Deion cutting players is fine, cut whoever you want,” Staples said. “Make the squad what you want it to be, you are hired to win games, you took over a 1-11 team. You have to cut players, you have to improve the squad and I think we can all certainly agree that he has done that.”
Cutting players was previously virtually unheard of in college athletics, as scholarship players were guaranteed to remain on the roster if needed as long as they maintained academic eligibility and stayed out of trouble off the field.
Sanders has flipped the script on this tradition, too intervened in the conversation along with other Colorado players and his son Shedeur Sanders. who has Make clear that the Buffaloes' transfer portal exits are the least of their worries right now. Which Staples believes only goes along with the entertainment and intrigue that Sanders has brought to the show, and that the future of the show in Colorado is the real storyline to watch going forward.
“In the first year I get the entire roster cleanup. I cut everyone off, it all makes perfect sense. But when you do the same thing again in the second year, I start to wonder. Then I wonder if there is a long term plan. If you don’t do home visits, if you don’t do school visits, if you don’t do the things that other coaches do to acquire talent,” Staples said. “I wonder if there’s a long-term plan.”
Sanders has a charisma and magnetism unparalleled in college football, as he was a former standout player and a unique personality. That's something the Colorado program will likely keep an eye on for as long as he's at the helm in Boulder. But given his current methods, is the program he's building designed for the long haul?
“He doesn’t seem to be building for the long term,” Staples said. “Now he has started to fill the class of 2025, we talked about that last time, he had not yet received any confirmations in the class of 2025. Now he has three so that's good, he's starting to get to grips with it. But they don't seem to be doing anything that creates any foundation for the future. It seems to be built on the players he brought with him Jackson Statethe really good Shedeur and Travis Hunter specifically, and then we’ll see what happens.”
Most head coaches across the county have commented on the balance between acquiring talent through the transfer portal and developing players internally. A balance that Sanders was previously unable to achieve in the early stages of his coaching career. The transfer will continue to bring large numbers of players in and out of the program in an unprecedented manner with results that are not yet proven.
“So at a certain point you have to stop and try to make the players better, otherwise you have no future in the long term. “You’re just going to play the same season over and over again,” Staples explained. “Now what’s getting out of hand, I don’t know if it’s getting out of hand because we don’t know. It’s the off-season, we’ll know when the season starts.”
The Buffaloes finished 4-8 last year in Sanders' first season as head coach, as he will look to increase their win total in the program's first season in the Big 12 Conference. And if he doesn't, the noise will undoubtedly continue to be loud and his methods will continue to be questioned.
But if there is indeed a slam dunk season in Colorado, there is no doubt that it will be heard loud and clear from the mountaintops of Boulder to the entire college football landscape.
