By Rock Westfall
To paraphrase Franklin Roosevelt, Saturday, September 7, 2024, will be an evening of infamy. On that night, the annoying noise of hype will meet substance personified in college football’s ultimate culture clash. The Colorado Buffaloes’ culture of clicks created by head coach Deion Sanders will succumb to the Nebraska Cornhuskers’ culture of reality engineered by Matt Rhule. Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium will have an overflow crowd that looks like a tsunami of red. On this night, Nebraska will be reborn as a national brand while Colorado will face the final judgment and comeuppance it so richly deserves.
Football remains a game of harsh truths. You can’t fake it. The counterfeit fraud that is Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes will be exposed and outed in a most humiliating way. Why? Because football remains a game of sacrifice and substance. Football’s eternal truths have not changed.
I’ve NEVER met a group like @CoachMattRhule and his team. The familial culture & focus on players are unparalleled. I’m excited for @riogocrazy and can’t wait to watch him blaze his Huskers trail! There’s no place like Nebraska – we’re grateful. #GBR #BufordBoys #M&M pic.twitter.com/EscQM1zBUM
— Dr. Roz (@rosblasingame) June 9, 2023
Colorado’s Click Culture Revolving Door
Former Colorado cornerback Cormani McClain summed up the Deion Sanders culture upon announcing his transfer out. “I feel like I just don’t want to play for clicks,” McClain said. “I actually want to be involved with a great leading program that’s going to develop players.”
Sanders has created a revolving door roster at Colorado. As he prepares for his second and potentially final season in Boulder he has a roster that lost 43 players to the transfer portal while bringing in 42 new players. Sanders emphasized the signing of offensive linemen to protect his quarterbacking son Shedeur, who was battered and knocked out of the lineup by the end of the 2023 season.
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Colorado allowed more than 50 sacks with a makeshift offensive line. Now they have a new makeshift offensive line. Offensive line play is complex and takes time to get into sync successfully. Building an o-line on the fly is nearly impossible. Yet the Deion Sanders hype machine is selling this bill of goods to an eager, fawning media and an ignorant fan base who is clueless about college football reality.
Why Colorado Football LOSING 44 Players Is NOT SUSTAINABLE! https://t.co/OQrzIWEXHl pic.twitter.com/2gIEN5ccik
— Bailey Price (@thebaileyprice) June 27, 2024
Sanders & Sons – The Family Business of Colorado Football
Deion Sanders’ greatest accomplishment is selling out Folsom Field for an entire season not once but twice in his two years. No other coach could achieve this, including Bill McCartney, who led Colorado to a national championship and the status of a power brand program in the early 1990s. From 1989 through 1996, Colorado ended with Top 20 finishes every season, including five seasons ranked 8th or better. Yet attendance was spotty at Folsom Field. Give Coach Prime his accolades for outstanding salesmanship.
But his program’s football substance is suffering. Players who join Colorado quickly discover it is not a team-oriented program. Instead, the Colorado football program is all about Deion Sanders and his sons. It is a family enterprise.
Coach Prime adamantly refuses to make recruiting trips, preferring the luxurious comfort of home or his office while his hired hands do the dirty work. At the same time, he excused his sons Shedeur Sanders and Shilo Sanders from the first team meeting of the 2024 offseason for a Louis Vuitton photo shoot in Paris, France.
Football is the ultimate reality check and team sport. Players notice who is committed to the team and who is not. At Colorado, players quickly discover that they are not cared for. Instead, they are background actors, never to be developed. At CU, players are hired hands for the Sanders & Sons family enterprise. Thus, these disillusioned players seek new programs where it’s about the team and the development of all.
Deion Sanders “gave his blessing” to Shilo and Shedeur Sanders to miss the first team meeting of the year, so they could walk in Paris Fashion week
— Unnecessary Roughness (@UnnecRoughness) January 17, 2024
The Cultural Rhule of a 50-Year Commitment
Matt Rhule’s Nebraska culture could not be more different. At Nebraska, everything is strategically set for the long term. If a prospect is about the bag, he is not welcome in Lincoln. But if a player wants to commit to a brotherhood and culture that he can count on for the next 50 years of his life, Nebraska is the ultimate destination.
Nebraska is building a roster based on stability, development, and teamwork. Nebraska loses fewer players to the portal than perhaps any other major program. Rhule is a demanding taskmaster. Players and coaches grind. They show up early, stay late, and come back for more the next day. Rhule’s culture is based on character and commitment. It’s a championship football culture based on reality and substance. In turn, character players are attracted to Nebraska.
Nebraska offers a competitive bag but also development for life after football. While Rhule is relentless, players see that he truly cares about them. In turn they commit to the Nebraska state motto of “The Good Life.” The national college football community is taking notice—Matt Rhule’s defiant, fearless, contrarian approach to college football cuts against the grain. Yet history shows it is the only type of culture that can lead to reliably consistent success.
Nebraska HC Matt Rhule explaining the 3 most important parts of program building.
– Roster. Evaluating the bottom 1/2 of your team. Find ways to develop/promote them. "The best thing I do is coach the scout team."
– Culture. What we do, not what we say.
– Football (Xs & Os) pic.twitter.com/jmr74P0ZMQ
— James Light (@JamesALight) January 20, 2024
The Revolving Door vs. A Way of Life
At Colorado, the Sanders & Sons enterprise and its X-post, social media clickbait mercenary machine is the only constant. Everything and everyone else is an interchangeable cog.
At Nebraska, the team is bigger than any individual. Everyone competes every day with nothing promised except opportunity and hard work.
The fan bases reflect these cultures. Colorado fans are shallow and fickle, like those who attend church once a year on Easter. CU “fans” include celebrities and hangers-on who previously had no interest in college football. The NBA is their first love. Deion Sanders is simply a Saturday pop culture idol on the side. No college football fan base is more fake, unaware, and temporary.
In comparison, Nebraska fans are true believers. College football is their religion. Husker Nation has sold out every game at Memorial Stadium since 1962, and they are still unanimously regarded as the best fans in college football.
In college football, there are no shortcuts. On September 7, before a prime-time NBC audience, Matt Rhule and Nebraska will show the world why the Good Life is superior. Colorado and its Sanders & Sons family business is about to be exposed as the bankrupt house of Joker cards it is like never before.
In 90 days, 90,000 screaming Nebraska fans will welcome Colorado to Lincoln and what a pivot point it will be for the Huskers.
Memorial Stadium, a true cathedral of College Football. pic.twitter.com/F146iCBKca
— Big Ten Ted (@BigTenTed) June 9, 2024
