Deion Sanders to Colorado players: ‘I’m bringing my own luggage with me.’
Deion Sanders was announced as the Colorado Buffaloes’ head football coach over the weekend. The move is one of the bigger hires that the FBS has had in this current coaching cycle, along with Luke Fickell to Wisconsin and Matt Rhule at Nebraska.
Colorado was one of the worst Power 5 programs in 2022, winning just one game for the second time since joining the Pac-12 (first season was 2011) and finishing 1-11. Sanders, who went 27-5 in three seasons at Jackson State while setting the program record in wins twice, didn’t mince words about the impending change with his new Colorado players, telling them to hit the portal and stating that he’s “bringing his own luggage.”
“We’ve got a few positions already taken care of because I’m bringing my luggage with me,” Sanders said. “It ain’t going to be no more of this mess that these wonderful fans, this student body, and some of your parents have put up with for probably two decades now. I’m coming. And when I get here, there’s going to be change.
“So I want y’all to get ready to go ahead and jump in that (transfer) portal. Do whatever you’re going to get because the more of you who jump in, the more room you make. Because we’re bringing kids that are smart, tough, fast, disciplined, with character.”
I’ve never been in a room where newly hired head coaches have met new players, but I’m sure more demonstrative things have been said. What Sanders said was cutthroat — since the start of 2020, not even half of D-I transfer portal football players have actually transferred to new NCAA programs — it was brutal honesty, it was a reality check, but that’s college football. That’s the reality of the situation; Sanders wants immediate change, especially since he’s taking on a program with a high pedigree that’s produced terrible results over the last several years.
And Sanders — who knows what it takes to be great, and is one of the most “real” figures in the football landscape — was a straight shooter. He didn’t beat around the bush: Clearly not everyone from an 1-11 team is going to stay, and those who do stay, will be tested and held accountable to standards that they themselves have probably never even experienced.
“Those of you that we don’t run off, we’re going to try to make you quit,” Sanders said later in the video. “That’s what our offseason is going to look like. I want ones that don’t want to quit, that want to be here, who want to work, who want to win, that want to be appreciative of every darn thing they’ve given you here. That’s what it’s going to look like. Heck of a lot of work.
“I want to get you to your breaking point so I know what I got. I don’t want to get in the game and then find out I’ve got Jane, when all offseason I had Tarzan. I’ve got to figure it out now.”
If I were a Colorado fan, I’d be running through several walls. And it appears that plenty of highly-touted D-I recruits and transfers might be ready to, too.
Sanders, without any prior head coaching experience, took an HBCU program that went a combined 23-44 over its previous six seasons and subsequently went 4-3 (COVID-shortened) in 2020, 11-2 in ’21 and 12-0 this season. He won back-to-back SWAC championships, their second-and-third SWAC championships, respectively, since 1996.
The CU culture might not change overnight, but Sanders clearly looks to have a method for the madness that could vault it to an above average Pac-12 program within the next 2-3 seasons. Players are already lining up at the door ready to play for him. Sanders wants accountable, smart, tough, athletic, disciplined players ready to go to war for 2023 and beyond.
Sanders, in his words, “is coming” — not just for the Pac-12, but for the rest of college football. We’ll see if he can succeed, but if it was anything like it was at Jackson State, then Colorado will fly up the rankings after being the doormat of the Pac-12 in 2022.
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