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    • Colorado, Deion Sanders excels, no bang against North Dakota State
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    Colorado, Deion Sanders excels, no bang against North Dakota State

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    Matt Hayes
    | USA TODAY Sports Network

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    It’s all superficial nonsense, a constant drone of chatter that means next to nothing. Unless you’re hanging out in Boulder and drafting with the rest of the B-list in tow.

    Or you’re ESPN collecting the advertising dollars.

    Here’s what we’ve been sold: Deion Sanders is a change agent who is reshaping college football as coach at Colorado.

    Here’s the reality: There’s nothing tangible or fundamental, just a hodgepodge of programs that have fielded more than 120 different scholarship players since the start of the 2023 season. A team that hasn’t beaten an FBS opponent since the first week of October of last year, yet somehow manages to suck the oxygen out of nearly every primetime television window.

    If we learned anything from Colorado’s narrow (and ugly) 31-26 loss to FCS North Dakota State on Thursday night ― an ugly loss of a win in a sport fueled by rankings and perception ― it’s that slow and steady wins the race. And flashy and fast shine only so long.

    The glimmer of hope, this chaotic team thrown together in a few months and sold – by who else, “Coach Prime” – as a legitimate threat to the fortunes of (take your pick) the Pac-12 and the Big 12, is nothing more than proof of how not to build a college football team.

    It is not transformational or inspiring. Not a blueprint for future success in the new age of the transfer portal, or a roadmap for navigating the great unknown of name, image and likeness.

    It’s just bad football.

    More: Colorado finalizes new deal with Deion Sanders’ manager for on-campus filming

    A team full of players who weren’t recruited by FBS schools, who had grown up in the North Dakota State program over the past three, four and five years, came into town and bullied the Buffs for the better part of three quarters. Meanwhile, a team that started last season with 82 of its 85 different scholarship players and then followed that up with another offseason roster purge that added 42 new scholarship players struggled to find answers.

    But for star quarterback Shedeur Sanders and wideout/cornerback Travis Hunter ― by far the two best players on the field ― the Prime Experiment had lost for the ninth time in 10 games. Sanders, a projected top-10 pick in the 2025 NFL draft, is so talented and unflappable that he’s worth at least three or four wins alone.

    The same four wins Colorado got in 2023, and the same four wins the Buffs will most likely get in 2024. It’s not hard to see where this ride ends.

    Shedeur Sanders leaves for the NFL and Deion rides off in the shadow of the Flatirons, with a program in tow.

    But it shouldn’t be that way. Deion Sanders has the dynamic personality and charisma to recruit at a high level and build a roster for the long term. He’s a rare unicorn, a former player who knows the game and how to coach it, and a guy with the ability to rally an entire university behind him and the product.

    He is the type of unquestionable force who can build a program and change a sport by using his platform and personality to convince college presidents in the Big 12 and other Power Four leagues to guarantee annual nonconference games against HBCUs, thereby saving (and strengthening) the 21 schools that desperately need funding for millions of dollars in payout games.

    Instead, we get a steady diet of insurance and fast food commercials, and dull bravado about NO money and putting yourself out there, and very little about winning and transformational change.

    Look, teams are a reflection of their coaches, and ever since Sanders showed up on campus and told the roster to hit the road (see: transfer portal) because he was taking Gucci, this experiment in devolution has been eroding from the top down. The latest sign of a program in freefall is a coach who blames the media.

    The mean media is the reason Colorado’s two wins in the last 10 games have come against arguably the worst Power Four team (Arizona State) and an FCS school (NDSU). The mean media is the reason Colorado has given up 56 sacks in 2023 and still couldn’t protect Sanders against an undersized FCS defensive line.

    The mean media is the reason Colorado, without Shedeur Sanders and Hunter, would not win a single game this season.

    More: Colorado won’t answer questions from journalist who was critical of Deion Sanders

    And then there’s Deion, the guy who did almost everything right in his football career before this side road to Boulder. He was an All-American at Florida State, a Hall of Fame cornerback in the NFL and a program builder ― yes, a program builder ― and championship coach at HBCU Jackson State.

    This is the same man who convinced heavyweight sponsors Wal-Mart, Proctor and Gamble and American Airlines to financially support Jackson State’s turnaround, including a luxury locker room and football facility. He’s a sponsor’s dream: doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke and doesn’t swear.

    He is everything you could want in a college football coach, but he can’t get out of his own way. He is too concerned with the sidelines instead of focusing on the primary activities.

    In Prime’s own jargon he is Gucci, when he should be Samsonite.

    It’s just bad football.

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