Will he, or won’t he?
After the Colorado Buffaloes missed the Big 12 Conference championship game and a possible berth in the National Championship Playoff because they went 0-for-Kansas, there’s an elephant in the room as they prepare for their consolation bowl game.
Will Coach Prime follow his sons out of Boulder and into the National Football League?
Or will he remain in the shadow of The Flatirons and build on his first two seasons as CU’s charismatic head football coach?
There are arguments in support of “yes” to both questions, enough to lie awake nights pondering the pros of both.
As for staying:
- There’s unfinished business.
- The 9-3 record and a national ranking represents major progress from last year’s 4-8 and dead-last finish in the moribund Pac 12.
- But there still are mountaintops to reach.
- Another challenge awaits, as well: winning without Shedeur at quarterback and Travis Hunter everywhere.
- Coach Prime’s incoming recruiting class is highly regarded—No. 2 in the Big 12, some say. And he’s demonstrated his ability to attract players from other universities.
- But can they top what he brought with him from Jackson State two years ago and harvested from the transfer portal thereafter?
- This is his chance to show the doubters.
- Personal happiness is also a factor. Coach Prime has said he loves it in Boulder and Colorado.
As for leaving:
- Currently, there are three head coaching vacancies in the National Football League: Bears, Saints and Jets. And others likely to come, maybe including Dallas, where Mike McCarthy is on the hot seat with a 5-7 record.
- Sanders played in five NFL cities: Atlanta, San Francisco, Dallas, Washington and Baltimore across 14 seasons (interrupted by a three-year retirement after 12).
- Demonstrating Hunter-like two-way ability, Neon Deion in 1996 caught 36 passes for 475 yards, intercepted two passes and recovered three fumbles, and scored twice, once receiving and once returning a fumble. (In his career, he scored nine times on defense!)
- Of his five former teams, head coach of the Dallas Cowboys has, by far, the most glamorous ring for a man who’s yet to find a spotlight too big or too bright.
Pro football distinction awaits.
Among the 378 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame through 2024, only a handful have done what Sanders would be able to say he did if he becomes a head coach in the NFL. That is, play and coach at that level.
He’d join a short list that includes George Halas, Curly Lambeau, Jim Thorpe, Fritz Pollard and Ernie Nevers. (Deion was inducted as a player in 2011.)
As if he isn’t raking in enough money already, coaching the Dallas Cowboys likely would mean even bigger paydays for Coach Prime.
But there’s at least one unknown.
“I don’t just coach these young men,” he said after Senior Day at CU last Friday. “I love these young men like they’re family, and I just want them to soar, not just from the football aspect, but as young men in life.”
A lot of coaches say something like that, and to a point probably mean it. But it’s more than schtick with Coach Prime. His investment in his players at the college level seems genuine.
And therein lies the unknown.
How would pros respond to that sentiment from their coach?
Would the coach have to become more businesslike?
Sanders certainly knows the professional environment after starring at that level for more than a decade.
But could he change his style? Would he want to?
There IS another possibility: Tallahasse, Florida, home of the Florida State Seminoles, where Deion was a three-time All-American.
That job’s filled right now, and likely won’t be vacant this time around, despite a more-than-disappointing season under Mike Norvell.
Coming off a 13-0 regular season in 2023 that earned Norvell various awards, FSU was ranked in the top 10 when the ’24 season began. But a 24-21 upset loss to Georgia Tech in Dublin to open the season was a sign of things to come. The Seminoles went 2-10, their worst season since 1974.
My bet is that Coach Prime will remain in Boulder for now. But keep an eye on the university where he excelled in the mid-‘80s.
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Denny Dressman is a veteran of 43 years in the newspaper business, including 25 at the Rocky Mountain News, where he began as executive sports editor. He is the author of 16 books, nine of them sports-related. You can write to Denny at dennydressman@comcast.net.