In just a few hours former Cowboys' defensive back Deion Sanders will lead the Colorado Buffaloes onto the field for the first time.
It has been quite the journey from Prime Time, the player, to Coach Prime for Sanders.
After a playing career that brought one Super Bowl win to Dallas in 1995, Sanders spent a few years as a high school head football coach.
in 2020 Sanders was hired to serve as head coach of Jackson State in the FCS.
In three years with the Tigers, Sanders compiled a 27-6 record and collected consecutive Southwestern Athletic Conference titles.
But his teams lost both of their bowl game appearances in the Celebration Bowl. His record was good enough to draw interest from schools in the top level of college football.
Coach Prime Back In Texas?
In late 2021, Sanders interviewed for the job at Texas Christian University – the team he will make his coaching debut against today.
The Horned Frogs eventually went with Sonny Dykes, who guided the team to last year's National Championship game in his first season.
This could be a situation where both programs got the coach they really needed.
Rocky Mountain Prime
The Buffaloes have struggled on the gridiron for years. Since joining the Pac-12 in 2011, Colorado has had only two winning seasons — 10-4 in 2016 and 4-2 in 2020.
Prior to that move, the Buffaloes had called the Big 12 home and their last winning season in that conference came in 2005 at 7-6.
Last year, the program hit rock bottom, going 1-11. Their lone win came over Cal, 20-13, and they lost their last six games of the year.
Karl Dorrell went 0-5 as the head coach before being replaced by Mike Sanford. The Buffaloes needed to make a change.
They went for a big swing and landed Sanders.
Pac-12 Finale
The Buffaloes will join a mass exodus out of the Pac-12 – which as of 2024 will be the Pac-2, assuming the conference survives — in 2024 and rejoin the Big 12.
Colorado comes into the 2023 season with low expectations. It gives Sanders a year to reshape the program before it joins one of the bigger conferences in college sports.
Just don't tell that to Sanders. He landed in Boulder as a man on a mission. He's also talking like a man who expects his team to start winning this year.
Complete Overhaul
When Sanders first met his new team he was blunt. He invited many of them to take advantage of the transfer portal. Because that was exactly what he was going to do.
Only 25 players on the Buffaloes' 2022 roster will return in 2023. Of those, just nine are scholarship players.
Sanders has brought in 87 new players – an unheard of number in college football for an established program. At any level.
Even more stunning, 57 of those newcomers arrived on campus after the spring game. A game which drew 50,000 spectators – another unheard of number in Boulder.
And that on a cold April day with the stadium surround by snow-capped mountains. That was the star power of Sanders and why Colorado hired him.
Living Up To The Hype
After several months of hype, its finally game time for Sanders and his new team.
Drawing a road game against a team that finished runner-up in college football just a few months before doesn't make his task any easier.
Can his team beat the heavily-favored Horned Frogs? Can his team manage to put together a winning season and a bowl game?
Those are questions that will be answered today and in the weeks to come. But if anyone could pull it off, it would be Sanders.
Fortunately for those subscribers stuck with Spectrum, the game will be nationally televised this morning at 11 a.m. (CDT) on FOX and not on ESPN.
Over the next three hours we'll see if Coach Prime is really ready for Prime Time.
