Deion Sanders on criticism of Colorado using players to recruit transfer portal: 'That don't make sense'

Deion Sanders fired back at critics of Colorado using players to recruit transfer portal players. He basically said, what else are you supposed to do considering this is how it works?

The background on this is Shilo Sanders, who plays defensive back for his father, put an Instagram story out for players to DM him or Shedeur Sanders. If players were transferring and were interested in Colorado, get in touch with the Sanders boys.

Coach Prime didn’t pay the critics any mind and said this is simply how it goes in today’s age of college football.

“They don’t know how this stuff works,” Sanders said on DNVR Sports. We don’t talk behind closed doors … Let’s get this straight, when real players want to jump, they can’t talk to personnel, right? So who do you talk to? (The players). How stupid are you to think that they don’t talk to one another? That’s when you know who’s who and what’s what.

“That’s where it comes from first. Like if I know who’s going to jump into the portal from our team, what are my players are gonna tell me? Not a coach from somewhere else because it’s illegal? Correct? For the coach to be having these conversations, although they happen … But when Shilo says this, he’s not lying.”

Sanders was honest: this is what happens on day to day basis. Colorado players aren’t afraid to show it in public.

“It’s how it goes down and he’s just making a joke out of it really,” Sanders said. “That’s hilarious, but that’s really how it goes. Now, go look at Shedeur’s DMs, you’re like oh my god. Every wide receiver, tight end and offensive lineman in the country.”

There are theories that Sanders told his sons to go that route on social media. He vehemently denied it.

“I don’t police my sons,” Sanders said. “My sons are grown, mature adults, thriving young men. Great academically, great intellectually, and they’re really good players, so I don’t have to police them about their whereabouts and what they do.”

Colorado and Deion Sanders have of course not been shy to use the transfer portal since he was hired early in 2023. Sanders famously eschewed most of the roster he inherited, famously telling the assembled team that he was “bringing his own luggage, and it’s Louis, OK?” Sanders alluding to the idea that the players he’d bring in were a cut above so openly might’ve been jarring, but he was unrepentant in following his own approach.

That’s also included not making trips himself to recruit high school players, something Sanders has been criticized — criticism he has in turn pushed back on — for not working to build these talent pipelines, but seems intent to keep following his portal-heavy plan of roster building.