JD PicKell credits Deion Sanders for doing things his way through roster turnover

The stories about the roster turnover at Colorado have been plentiful as head coach Deion Sanders has purged a majority of the players that were on the roster when he arrived. And while his moves have rankled some, On3’s J.D. PicKell has respect for Sanders for coming into Boulder and being committed to building through the portal — and fast.

Since Sanders arrived at Colorado at the end of the 2022 season, he’s seen more than 50 players enter the transfer portal. But he’s also brought in the top transfer class, according to the On3 Transfer Portal Team Rankings and signed the No. 33 overall recruiting class in 2023. He also got some headlines for the specific way he told players they didn’t have a spot on the team.

“Deion Sanders is making no apologies for being Deion Sanders. And, to some degree, you have to — not to some degree — I think you have to respect that, period. Because the beautiful thing about this is, and I was texting with somebody earlier, Deion Sanders will never, ever have to wonder, ‘Man, what if I had done it my way? What if I hadn’t worried so much about the external noise and just straight-up stuck to my own plan.’ Like, he won’t ever have to wonder about that,” PicKell said. “And I think that’s phenomenal for Coach Prime. I think that’s phenomenal for us, the college football public.”

PicKell recalled a recent interview with new Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule, where he recalled that he wishes he had taken a bigger swing while head coach of the Carolina Panthers. The situations aren’t perfectly analogous, but PicKell thinks there’s enough similarities to show why Sanders is going after turning over the roster so hard.

“Matt Rhule, on a previous podcast talking about his NFL was saying, ‘I wish I had taken a bigger swing when I was in Carolina. I wish we made a bigger trade. I wish we had done this and that.’ And I think the NFL is different than the college game. So I don’t want to liken Matt Rhule to Deion Sanders and their situations. But the sentiment is the same,” PicKell said. “Coach Prime is saying ‘Listen, I’m not waiting for us to eventually get it right. I’m acting right now, I’m making changes right now, to get the people into this operation, into this organization, to do what we want to do.’ So credit Coach Prime for that.”

PicKell had one final point, more specific to the on-field product at Colorado. With the roster being almost entirely different from a season ago, the 1-11 mark that Colorado put up in 2022 isn’t a representative mark for how to judge the current team.

He’s not penciling the Buffaloes in as Pac 12 champions, but PicKell reminded that the 2023 Colorado team is a complete page turn from the previous squads.

“We can no longer judge Colorado by last year. Everyone’s going to throw out ‘Well, they were 1-11’ and ‘What he’s taking over is so difficult and how is he going to get them to win.’ Like, that’s all still true. Colorado was 1-11. But 76% of the roster that he’s going to take the field with Week 1 will be brand spanking new. We can’t judge Colorado by last year anymore because last years Colorado is no longer in Boulder for the most part. Like it is a totally new organization,” PicKell said. “So, Coach Prime is going to do things his way, respect the heck out of him for it. And I think that’s what you’re seeing right now with this mass exodus with the portal.

“Not all these guys, but a lot of these guys were told, ‘Hey, you no longer have a spot here. We’re doing things differently.'”