Colorado's Deion Sanders discusses his respect level for Chip Kelly

Saturday was the meeting of two friends in Los Angeles. Deion Sanders brought his Colorado team into the Rose Bowl to face off against UCLA‘s Chip Kelly, playing in prime time on ABC. The Bruins wound up the win for their sixth of the season, while Colorado fell to .500 at 4-4.

Kelly and Sanders shared a moment at midfield after the game, embracing one another before exchanging words. You could tell there is a lot of respect between the two and during his postgame press conference, Sanders confirmed as such.

In fact, he’s happy to get UCLA off the schedule so he can call Kelly. Sanders is still a young coach in the college football world despite all of the success. Learning from a veteran and somebody who has been there like Kelly is something he wants moving forward.

“I adore their head coach,” Sanders said. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. He’s a great coach. I’m glad we finally got our contest over so I could call him and get advice from time to time. We discussed that before the game and after the game.

“He’s one of the real ones, he’s one of the good ones, and he knows what he’s doing.”

Kelly has been around the block a time or two in college football. There was a brief stint in the NFL but prior to then, he took Oregon to a level the program had never been at. He has gotten UCLA back to a consistent level too over the past few seasons.

Deion Sanders, Chip Kelly relationship to continue outside of Pac-12

Lucky for Sanders, he likely will not have UCLA on the schedule again anytime soon. This time next season, neither will be members of the Pac-12. Colorado is off to the Big 12 and UCLA is making the move to the Big Ten. Maybe there is a nonconference scheduling opportunity down the road.

If not, Kelly and Sanders are going to be free to talk as often as they would like. There will be no attempt to get an advantage over one another. Kelly has the opportunity to share his wisdom on Sanders was asked.

We have seen Sanders get chippy with opposing coaches at certain times this year. Kelly was not — and will not — be one of them, with the duo clearly having a ton of respect for one another.