Deion Sanders: Success is one of the hardest things for players to handle

In year two under head coach Deion Sanders, the Colorado Buffaloes have found more success than they’ve had in several seasons. That has the team tied for second in the Big 12 standings.

At this point, the work isn’t done and there are still challenges for Sanders to deal with at Colorado. That, notably, includes keeping his team focused because, as he explained during a recent press conference success is one of the hardest things for players to handle.

“That’s the toughest thing that they deal with,” Deion Sanders said. “Success. It’s the toughest thing. When a player comes here, you’ve got to understand, he wants attention, he wants focus, he wants the tutelage from the staff that we’ve compiled.”

Certainly, Colorado has found success this season. The Buffaloes are 6-2 and 4-1 in conference play and have won their last two games. In the initial College Football Playoff Selection Committee rankings, Colorado was ranked 20th, which was the fourth highest in the Big 12. With that, there is once again mounting attention on Colorado, which Sanders knows his team needs to find a way to handle.

“But then you’ve got to understand: Can he handle it? There’ve been a tremendous amount of players and coaches that have come here, and you think they can handle that light, and you find out that they can’t because that light shows everything. It shows your blemishes, shows your ups, shows your down. Right ladies? It shows everything. Light is everything. That’s the toughest thing to really equate when you’re evaluating these young men. Can they handle success? Because a lot of them have been in certain situations where failure has been all around, and they see how that affects people. But success — they really hadn’t been put in that situation,” Sanders said.

“Then you walk into the locker room and you see Travis [Hunter] and some guys around there, you start putting yourself up against them, saying, ‘I’m not that.’ First time in your life you start saying ‘I’m good but I’m not that.’ Then you’ve got to deal with that.”

Given where Colorado currently sits within the Big 12, it’s still possible that the Buffaloes make it to the College Football Playoff. To do that, they’d likely have to win the conference championship game, which is a challenge to get to because they don’t play Iowa State, who is tied with Colorado for second in the Big 12. That means Colorado either needs Iowa State to lose or to win the tiebreaker.

First, Deion Sanders and Colorado will need to take care of business for the rest of the regular season. That continues with a road trip to play Texas Tech on Saturday.