By Scott Salomon
In an interview with Dan Patrick on Wednesday, Coach Prime said that he did not jettison 75 players to the college football portal but that he sat down with only 20 players and told them that it was not going to work out for them in Boulder.
“Maybe 20 kids we sat down with and said, ‘we may head in a different direction’. Everyone else quit. They quit. You can’t hold me responsible for that.” Prime said to Patrick. “When you see Jordan and the Dream Team practicing, I’m sitting up there saying that ‘this might not work out for me. I don’t know if I can do that’ and they want to play football, they just shut it down.”
What did he just say? He is comparing the 2023 sub-par Colorado football team to the more than likely greatest basketball team ever assembled.
Sanders rattled off a bunch of stats for Patrick to prove that his team was already statistically better than the 2022 team. Well, they should be. In 2022, Colorado won only one game and did not have the superstar talent that this team does.
“Sometimes you have to show these young men and the coaches in the locker room that we are not where we want to be but were trending in the right direction,” Sanders said. “This is a tremendous amount of progress.”
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Coach Prime and Dan Patrick agreed that the team is about 8-10 key players away from being a national competitor. Prime admitted that even he has to be patient.
“I need to involve patience in some aspects of coaching with regard to the fact that I want to win right now, but we can’t. I know where we come up short, we try to mask it, but we have to be honest. Some people can’t see through the smoke. I’ve been honest and I’ve been straight up, Prime said. “I’ve always been forthright and said ‘slow down’ we are not where we need to be. I’ve always said, ‘you better get me now because we are about 8-10 guys away.’ I know these kids, I counsel them and I know their shortcomings and I love them,”
"Maybe 20 kids we sat down with and said 'we may head in a different direction'. Everyone else quit. They quit. You can't hold me responsible for that."
–@DeionSanders discusses his viral video addressing the Colorado players the day he was announced as Head Coach pic.twitter.com/CGw4aWbwCo
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) November 7, 2023
Of the fact that Colorado has lost four out of its last five games, Sanders said it is tough for him to handle mentally. He said he handles losses differently.
They don’t leave. They have their own little place of solitary confinement, and they don’t leave,” Sanders said. “Mentally, it’s not an easy ride, but that’s what you sign up for.”
Coach Prime continued to talk about the losses and focused on the Oregon game that Colorado lost 42-6.
“We got our butts kicked once, Oregon kicked our flat-out butts. It was 30-0 when we got off the plane,” Prime said. “But every other game, we had an opportunity to win, but we do not know how to win.
“We do not have the personnel yet to be who we desire to be,” Sanders admitted.
Sanders also said that the losses hang around a lot longer than the wins do.
“I don’t have the time to celebrate a win. I love challenges. After we conquered, I’m on to the next,” Sanders said. “I know what we have in the house.”
Sanders also admitted that he is reliving his playing career through his sons, quarterback Shedeur Sanders and safety Shilo Sanders, who are two of the best players on the team.
“I am living vicariously through the guys with Sanders on the back of their jerseys,” Sanders said. “It’s all I know, Shedeur, the only time he played without me was when I was in the hospital with these blood clots at Jackson. We love it. They tried to leave Daddy this year, but they will both come out next year, [2025].”
Coach Prime was asked by Patrick about NIL money and what he kind of car he would be driving if they had NIL when he played at Florida State in the mid-to-late 1980’s.
“I probably would have had a driver at Florida State,” Coach Prime stated emphatically. “Let’s get that straight, I would have had a driver for sure.”
Sanders has been a pitchman throughout his tenure at Colorado and appears in ads for Icy Breeze, California Almonds, and KFC. He said that he would not endorse a product he did not believe in or use in his daily life.
“Honesty, sincerity, and passion,” Sanders said, are the three things that a good pitchman must have. “I really eat almonds, I really eat KFC. I really do this stuff.”
Prime said that he is currently over the halfway mark of his football life.
“We’ve been at this for a long time, and it is the third quarter of life,” Sanders said. “We still going on, and we winning.”
The fourth quarter of life does not involve his coaching in the National Football League. Prime said it was just not for him. Patrick asked Prime if there could be a package deal for him and Shedeur in the NFL.
“I’m not built for the NFL. I respect the game so much that when I see a guy getting paid millions of dollars to play the game, and he doesn’t respect the game, I’m just too brutally honest,” Sanders said. “I need everyone to respect the game and have the love and the passion.”
