Whitlock: Deion Needs to Cut Out the Self-Idolatry and Stop Living Vicariously Through his Team
By Scott Salomon
Jason Whitlock has had it with Coach Prime and his players' attitudes.
As Stephen A. Smith would say, "Quite Frankly" so have I.
Prime is trying to build little clones of himself with his Colorado football team and said so much after the 46-43 home loss to Stanford Friday night.
“What I just said in the locker room to the team is they have to make up in their mind: are they IN LOVE with this game or are they IN LIKE with it? Because when you love something, you give to it unconditionally. You give everything you’ve got to it, but when you ‘like it’ that’s just a button you push. That’s what they do on social media. It’s hard for me because I LOVE this. I am truly 100% in love with this thing and I just want people to match ME. Match my passion, match my heart, match my love, match my consistency, match my mannerisms, just match every darn thing I give to this game."
— Deion Sanders after his team's loss to Stanford
When is Prime going to learn that he is retired and that he is not going to have 85 scholarship players work as hard as he did when he was a professional athlete?
Not all of his players are going to LOVE football the way he does. Not all have the ability to do the things Player Prime had. And at this point, that is something Coach Prime refuses to acknowledge and work with to make better.
The keyword has to be student first, then athlete.
Whitlock, host of Fearless with Jason Whitlock, calls what Prime is doing "self-idolatry."
Essentially, Whitlock says, Prime wants his players to "BE LIKE ME." Prime said so in his post-game presser when he said, " MAN, THESE KIDS JUST GOTTA BE MORE LIKE ME!"
"I'm trying to shake Deion and tell him, 'Hey, man, this self-idolatry you got going is going to kill you as a football coach," Whitlock said. "It's completely obvious. Anybody can see it."
It is a statistical fact, proven with empirical data, that Colorado is the most penalized team in college football. Whitlock analogizes that to the team being undisciplined, as many of the penalties were either pre-snap penalties on offense or personal fouls on defense.
When Prime was playing, he was remembered for being the first to wear the Mr. T starter kit, as he had more gold chains around his neck than one human could possibly need. It was all a part of the Prime shtick. He now wants to teach Prime 101 to his sons and the rest of the team at Colorado.
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Perhaps that is why quarterback Shedeur Sanders is running past fans in the stands, flashing a watch that is worth more than some fans make in a year. Whitlock claims that the watch is worth $40,000 and that Coach Prime is energizing his son and encouraging this type of braggart behavior. In fact, in his post-game press conference, Prime said. "we gotta get my son a watch deal."
The actions by Shedeur would have been Prime, if the elder Sanders could have made money in college. That was Prime when he declared from the draft and could accept money from third parties. That was Prime when he engineered his Hall of Fame career as a shut-down corner.
Travis Hunter, a two-way star who plays for Colorado, is Prime's "Mini-Me." He has all the talent in the world and can play on both sides of the ball with equal dignity and delight. Prime has taken him under his wing and is trying to shape him into what he wanted to be in the NFL: a full-time, throw-back two-way player that could be let loose on both sides of the ball.
It's just not conceivable in today's game. Hunter missed three games with a lacerated liver, came back extremely quickly, against Prime's advice, but was still told to take the field for approximately 140 snaps. He started at wide receiver on offense and at cornerback on defense.
He was also targeted 20 times as a receiver and caught 13 balls for 140 yards and two scores. On defense, his primary responsibility was to cover Elic Ayomanor, and he was targeted 19 times and caught 13 balls for 294 yards and three scores.
Hunter played too much, came back too quickly, and Prime did it to win the game. Plain and Simple. Prime wanted Hunter to "BE LIKE ME" or wanted to be like Hunter through some vicarious time machine. Hunter has Prime-like talent, but to expect him to play 140 downs in his first game back from nearly destroying a vital bodily organ is just ridiculous.
Whitlock suggests that he plays Hunter to pad his son's stats at quarterback. That is not such a bad thought. Shedeur did not have his favorite target for three games, lost two of them, and saw his Heisman dreams disappear.
This is a lack of leadership, according to Whitlock, and I agree with him. This is part and parcel of why Colorado surrendered a 29-0 lead at the half and played with reckless abandon as an undisciplined football team.
Stephen A. Smith even got into the game and called Prime's loss to Stanford "an absolute disgrace." See the video below.
Prime agreed with Smith. He accepted his lumps and had no receipts.
I have been accused of being a racist due to my thoughts and comments regarding Coach Prime. I am glad that Whitlock, an African-American male, shares my views and wants better for the Colorado student-athletes.
It's about time that more members of the media bring this behavior to the forefront and realize that just because Colorado has won four games so far this season, three more than all of last year, this team is no better than they were last year when the former Buffaloes had no identity.
I have heard the fans, and I have heard the media compare this Colorado team and its swagger to the 1980s Miami Hurricanes.
Prime could not carry Jimmy Johnson's briefcase. Miami had the swagger, but they backed it up on the field, winning three national championships in the decade. Prime lost to Stanford and should have lost to Colorado State and has won nothing as Colorado's coach.
Don't make comparisons to greatness, when you can't back it up.
