Following an offseason of transfers in and transfers out, pointed criticism and breathless praise, of lawsuits, media banishments and, of course, all-access videos, the Colorado Buffaloes return to the field Thursday when they host North Dakota State.
Naturally it will be nationally televised on ESPN.
“The world is watching,” head coach Deion Sanders said.
Coach Prime is back, although he never really left, which speaks to the attention he creates and commands. After all, CU went 4-8 last year.
Are the Buffs going to be good? Are they going to disappoint? Is this going to be a trainwreck? Is this going to be a glorious ascension? Will Sanders leave Boulder at season’s end?
“I’m just getting started in this college football thing,” he said this week.
No one knows anything except that beginning Thursday all the outside noise — positive and negative — no longer matters. If the Prime experiment is going to work in FBS football, let alone in Boulder, then winning is truly all that matters.
“I love the roster that we have established,” Sanders said this week. “I love what I am seeing on a day-to-day basis not only from the players but the staff as well. Those guys are challenging those guys to their job at a high level.”
Sanders has never done anything like anyone else has done things. He promoted himself as a defensive player. He played in both the NFL and MLB at the same time. He talked. He preened. He never backed down. He constantly took on new challenges.
When he wanted to get into coaching, he chose a college head job — at HBCU Jackson State — rather than joining an NFL staff. He recruited five-star talent anyway.
Now he starts his second season at CU, with a roster built through the portal and the head coach paying almost no attention to high school prospects. This is not how it’s conventionally done. Prime doesn’t care.
Nor, he claims, does he even worry about the doubters — from rival coaches, to the media, to fans — who are flatly predicting this won’t work.
Proving them wrong — again, he claims — isn’t important. Just winning is important.
“You don’t care, really, because it doesn’t influence you,” Sanders said. “I’ve never read an article or an outside comment and said, ‘Oh, that’s going to make me go harder.’ I’m going to go hard regardless …
“It doesn’t propel me,” he continued. “Where I came from propels me. How I was raised propels me. Being an African American, one of few who are a head coach in college football, that propels me.”
Sanders took over a 1-11 team a year ago and flipped the roster via the transfer portal, all while filming nearly every move. The Buffs started hot, winning their first three games and drawing massive television audiences and sidelines full of celebrities.
Then it all came undone with a 1-8 finish.
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Undeterred, Sanders kept the transfer turnstiles spinning. The club is built around his son Shadeur, a potential NFL first-round draft pick at quarterback, and two-way sensation Travis Hunter. Yet Prime believes his team is better in the trenches, will be better running the ball and has far more depth than a year ago.
In a normal situation, a coach who goes from one win to four to, say, six would be a success. This isn’t normal. Is six enough? How about eight? In the past Sanders has spoken about competing for national championships. Now he isn’t putting any expectations out there.
“Even when I played the game I never talked about what I am going to do, contrary to what you all believe,” Sanders said. “I want to win, certainly that. You’ve got to be an idiot if you don’t want to win in life or you don’t want to win as a coach. That is just stupidity if you don’t want to do that.”
He kept it simple.
“I expect to do some amazing things,” he said.
There are plenty of people who want to watch him succeed. There are plenty of people who want to see him fail.
The time for the talk and the hype and the fights and the controversies and the narratives and the speculation are over.
It’s all about winning now, with the (college football) world watching.
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