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    • Deion Sanders is the change agent football needs
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    Deion Sanders is the change agent football needs

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    There’s such a thing about stands: they fold up just as easily as they fold down.

    They are inherently temporary, providing stable support when needed and easily retracted when they escape.

    ‘Do you know what a standard is? That means I’m resting,” Colorado coach Deion Sanders said earlier this week. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re about to get comfortable.”

    To this I say: who cares where Sanders is coaching football in 2025? In Colorado, a blue-blood college football player or with the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.

    We should only care that he does more.

    More Deion, more Prime. More of that unique brand and bravado to influence others beyond his orbit here and now. This is going to sound absurd, but I don’t think Deion fully understands Prime’s power off the field.

    Deion is the ultimate man in the Arena. And now it’s time, in the words of Teddy Roosevelt, to dare big.

    He’s too deep into this coaching thing now. It goes much further than blocking and tackling.

    Two years ago, when Deion floated the idea of ​​leaving what he had quickly built at the Championship Subdivision school at Jackson State for a job at Bowl Subdivision, I said Auburn would be foolish not to hire him. He grew up in the South, was a prep legend at North Fort Myers High School in Florida and an All-American at Florida State.

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    If anyone knew the South and how to recruit its talent-rich footprint, and could at least highlight Alabama and then-coach Nick Saban, it was Deion. More than that, he could be a change agent on the biggest stage in college football: the mighty SEC.

    That’s where this story begins and ends, where Deion’s presence and full promotional power can work wonders.

    If Deion had been the coach at Auburn, his big, bold personality could have been convincing – wait, popular – SEC presidents to play annual non-conference games against HBCU schools, with million-dollar paydays for guaranteed games easing financial pressure for some of the 54 football institutions. Maybe even what allows them to survive and thrive.

    That doesn’t mean he can’t do the same at Colorado and the Big 12, even if the level of financial investment is clearly different. That doesn’t mean he can’t do much more in the NFL, where 32 of the richest, smartest businessmen and women run the most efficient, money-making sports machine in the world.

    The NFL makes $12.4 billion annually from media rights deals. Read that again: $12.4 billion.

    It wouldn’t take much for a change agent to win the ear of an influential owner — I don’t know Cowboys king Jerry Jones, for example — and convince him (and by proxy the other 31 owners) of the greater good in the world. direct financial support to football-playing HBCUs.

    When Deion arrived in Colorado two years ago, he told USA TODAY’s Jarrett Bell that he was a “hope cop.” He has also proven at the FBS level that he knows the coaching business.

    Jackson State was a mess when Deion arrived, both on and off the field. Locker room, practice field, weight room, stadium; all outdated. All changed (overhauled or replaced) by the Prime brand and bravado.

    At one point, Jackson State had sponsorship deals with Under Armour, Pepsi, American Airlines and Proctor and Gamble – a smorgasbord of American advertising.

    Deion won two Southwest Athletic Conference championships at Jackson State before heading to downtrodden Colorado, and in Year 2 that’s two wins by playing for a spot in the College Football Playoff and fooling those who thought this was not possible (ahemguilty).

    But this is more than Deion, the coach. It’s Prime, the Hope Agent.

    It doesn’t matter where Deion coaches in 2025. All that matters is how he influences the game on and off the field.

    If Colorado reaches the CFP, Deion’s presence will be even bigger on the sport’s biggest stage in the first 12-team playoff. It’s an advertising bonanza made in heaven.

    Prime, the hope agent, can’t let that moment go to waste when he returns to Colorado – or turns the tables and heads to the NFL.

    He’s too wrapped up in this coaching thing not to dare to do much now.

    Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X @MattHayesCFB.

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