Deion Sanders on Colorado’s upcoming college football season: ‘We better win’
The Colorado Buffaloes are coming off a 3-9 season but head coach Deion Sanders is only looking forward and talked about the next steps for the program during Big 12 media day Tuesday at the Ford Center at the Star.
“I’m thankful that God didn’t allow my neck to go all the way back and look back, because that would be in tremendous pain right now, and I’m thankful that I look ahead and I’m right on point,” said Sanders. “I’m loving everything I’ve seen in the spring, I’m loving everything that we’ve added, I’m loving what we did in the portal, I’m loving what we’re doing. Recruiting wise, right now we’re right where we want to be.”
Sanders got some good news on that front on Tuesday when four-star offensive lineman Dewey Young announced his commitment to the program, which has the 31st best incoming recruiting class in the country and third best in the Big 12, according to 247 Sports.
Sanders has had an up-and-down tenure at Colorado after a competitive first season his Buffaloes came close to the College Football Playoff before finishing 9-4.
This season,, Sanders is and refusing to look ahead when asked about the team’s first two Big 12 games against Baylor and the league’s defending champions, Texas Tech.
“We’ll take [it] one game at a time, and I’m not thinking about those two games.... We’re thinking about that first one. First of all, we’re think about going to camp and having a wonderful camp,” said Sanders. “I’m excited about everything that we have on this roster, because I feel like we have the team to win, and I cannot wait to see it.”
The Big 12 coaches didn’t seem to agree with their preseason poll having no Buffaloes on their awards list though Sanders paid the list no mind.
“We don’t care about what people say. People are always going to have opinion. If my kids and my coaches and our staff don’t understand who they are, we have a problem,” said Sanders. “Just because our guys were snubbed off a poll that’s probably not going to be consistent with the end of the season, we don’t give a darn. Our kids know who, what, when, where, and how they are. They know what they got to do and how they got to work. It just gives them that extra hmph inside of them, and I’m thankful and appreciative of that.”
Last year Sanders suffered from a bout with bladder cancer and spoke about what his younger self would make of his fight and what he’s accomplished as a coach.
“My younger self would be proud, would be proud that I was here last year fighting a battle called cancer, and now I’m here with full strength, full energy. I got that bang back, I got that swagger back, I got that dog back, I got that charisma back,” said Sanders.
Sanders also talked off the field ventures and explained why fans wouldn’t see him in upcoming EA Sports video game College Football 27. Sanders hadn’t been in the game’s previous two editions, joining Miami’s Mario Cristobal, UNC’s Bill Belichick, Iowa Kirk Ferentz, Utah State Bronco Mendenhall, Southern Missisppi’s Blake Anderson and UNT’s Neal Brown (North Texas).
“I don’t know about the video games. I have a wonderful team that handles a lot of business for me. If I’m not in the game, that means they weren’t paying enough. It probably didn’t fit where we’re going right now. That’s probably It was probably that simple,” said Sanders.
The Buffaloes will open their season against Georgia Tech at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 3 in a nationally televised game airing on ESPN.
