Coach Deion Sanders is a lazy recruiter.
When I was a young up and coming high school football coach, my wife and I would constantly run into Gary Barnett and his wife at a popular local restaurant. We got to know each other and on occasion would talk about football and he would impart valuable coaching advice. Out of all the impactful things he shared, this is the one thing that has stuck with me most all these years: He openly admitted he wasn’t a great coach. He just had a knack for going out and recruiting coaches who were and putting them into positions to do what they each did best.
Later in my coaching career I had the chance to coach with one of the best young coaches I’ve ever seen. Passionate, humble and wickedly smart this young man came up in an era where recruiting players has changed entirely from just a few short years ago. On a call just before the CFB season started we discussed a myriad of things, but the one thing he said that remembering this week hit me like a lightning bolt was, “never assume they want you as much as you want them.”
It’s becoming apparent over the last three years Coach Prime is a lazy recruiter when it comes to players. Some may say that has to do with his recurring health issues, but from Day 1 on campus, Sanders has preferred to simply sit high in his office in Dal Ward and hold court to recruits. His best and most widely known recruiting tactics are 1) His fame, 2) The fame of his sons, and 3) Tactics designed and deployed by the AD marketing team. He holds steadfast that he will not do recruiting visits to player’s homes nor visit high school games. There is no question this stance is used against him by other coaches.
While Coach Prime’s player recruiting quirks are widely known to the average fan, what is now becoming apparent is that same laziness has overlapped into recruiting and hiring coaches. Prime has hired and fired a multitude of coaches over three years in Boulder, that frankly shouldn’t have been here in the first place. There seems to be no real vetting of coaches, rather they seem to be hired based on personal connection and/or “feel” or simply because they’re in the building. That’s pure laziness.
For every Nick Williams, Jason Phillips or George Helow, Prime has in turn forced on us a Bill O’Brien, a Gary Harrell, a Charles Kelly, a Sal Sunseri, a Gunnar White, a Phil Loadholt, a Sean Kelly, a Tim Brewster – and God help us all – an Andre Hart and a Pat Shurmur.
And while hiring ex-NFL HOFers may be great publicity, when they are continually out coached by no-name counterparts that have paid their dues and worked their way up through the CFB ranks, the publicity and panache can, and will, eventually turn sour.
Coach Prime is a good coach. He can be a great coach. But he needs to stop being lazy. It will take him giving the extra effort and mental fortitude he demands of his players to get there.
To read more from BuffsBlog, check out the story on CU’s most recent commit — Thompson Valley High School offensive linemen Josiah Manu. Only at:
This is spot on. I don’t think most of the CU media has the b*lls to call this out, but it’s 100% true. Well said.
In my opinion I think we have the players to compete put the team has a serious tackling problem. You can say that is a lack of coaching! Either way they can not tackle!. You must might be right about coach Hart, the linebackers seem to never be in position and over commit to gap integrity, instead of read and slide. I think you are SPOT ON about Shurmur. He was run out of Denver and New York. I do not want to put too much emphasis on injuries but in the defensive trenches we are very light.
In my opinion I think we have the players to compete put the team has a serious tackling problem. You can say that is a lack of coaching! Either way they can not tackle!. You must might be right about coach Hart, the linebackers seem to never be in position and over commit to gap integrity, instead of read and slide. I think you are SPOT ON about Shurmur. He was run out of Denver and New York. I do not want to put too much emphasis on injuries but in the defensive trenches we are very light.
I have no argument with that. I was more prepared to coach freshmen football than these guys are for Division I football games. I had to be. I wasn’t that good of a football player, so I made sure my players were taught fundamentals. We even scouted and watched film of the freshmen teams we were playing. I remember the guys that had played college ball rarely made good HS coaches. The best ones played smaller colleges or HS only. They learned the game and know how to teach the game. Those that were very good naturally have no idea what a player with less talent but strong work ethic goes through to improve. Prime does seem to appreciate those types of players though.
This is a great take. I’m a huge Deion fan but he will have to get out of his stubborn ways. Same thing went for the Clemson coach. He refused to use the transfer portal now Clemson is taking in transfers. Hence why Nick Saban retired. He knew his name and track record would not be the drawing factor anymore. You either get with the times or the times will pass you by