Deion Sanders builds and rebuilds roster in first season at Colorado

Editor’s Note: This is the 10th of 11 Pac-12 football 2023 team previews — one for each of Arizona’s conference brethren. Today: Colorado (1-11 overall, 1-8 Pac-12 a year ago). The Buffaloes were picked to finish 11th out of 12 in the conference’s preseason media poll.

BOULDER, Colo. — Deion Sanders cleaned house when he first arrived at Colorado. Not satisfied, the coach of the Buffaloes carried on with the extreme makeover after the spring game.

His lavish use of the transfer portal to build, scrape and rebuild his roster has drawn the wrath of some in college football. Not that he cares what others think as he tries to fix a program coming off a 1-11 season.

He’s conducting this remodeling project his way, even if it ruffles some feathers. He’s got 56 new players from the spring game alone, and three starters back from a season ago.

Ask the Pro Football Hall of Fame player about culture, though, and he goes into full lockdown cornerback mode. It’s a concept that puts him on the defensive.

And still getting to know each other. There’s been that much turnover since he stepped on campus in December, with 86 newcomers on the 114-player roster.

After the spring game, another mass exodus of players hit the portal. It caught the attention of several of his coaching colleagues, with Oklahoma coach Brent Venables telling OU Nightly Sports that he didn’t appreciate the way Sanders gave “pink slips” to the bulk of the players he inherited.

The revolving door was necessary, Sanders contended, to assemble the team he needed to turn around a program that’s only had two winning seasons since joining the Pac-12 in 2011.

“You had some young men that just didn’t want to play the game,” Sanders said of overhauling the roster after arriving from Jackson State, where he went 27-6 over three seasons. “They didn’t love football. It’s hard for me to be effective if you don’t love it, if you don’t like it, if you don’t want to live it. That’s tough. That’s tremendously tough when you’re looking at a body of just dead eyes. That’s tough on any coach, not just me.”

Sanders brought with him from Jackson State his quarterback son, Shedeur, and a big-time playmaker in cornerback/receiver Travis Hunter. This spring, the coach also added another of his sons, Shilo, to play safety.

Although Shilo Sanders hasn’t been in Boulder long — he arrived from Jackson State after a stint at South Carolina — one thing’s clear to him: “We’ve got some real dogs,” he said. “It starts with Coach Prime.”

On the move

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These days, Sanders is motoring around on a scooter due to surgeries to fix issues with blood clots in his legs. He had two toes on his left foot amputated in 2021.

Saying goodbye

Sanders hasn’t given much thought to how the latest round of realignment took the Buffaloes from the Pac-12 to the Big 12.

“I don’t care what conference, who we’re playing against, we’re trying to win,” Sanders said. “Everybody’s chasing the bag (money) and you get mad at the players when they chase it.”

Favorite son?

Sanders has an undisputed No. 1 quarterback in his son, Shedeur, who threw for 3,752 yards and 40 touchdowns last season. But he’s not Sanders’ favorite son — according to Shilo, anyway.

Shilo’s basis is the screensaver on his father’s phone.

“Usually it’s me,” Shilo said, laughing. “Sometimes I get to catch who’s on there and I tell the whole family. It’s been me for a while now.”

NEW STAFF

The coaching staff that Sanders brought in has a combined 200 seasons of experience, with 1,254 wins. Sanders also added former NFL coach Pat Shurmur in a support role.

Schedule

The Sanders Era at Colorado opens with a road game against TCU on Sept. 2. The first home game is the following week against former Big 12 rival Nebraska. Sanders has certainly been good for business at the box office, where the Buffaloes’ season-ticket allotment sold out for the first time since 1996.