On Deion Sanders and the disconnect from reality in much of the commentary on 2023 Colorado

Turn on your favorite national sports talk show on ESPN or FS1 and you’ll probably hear someone say something really stupid about Deion Sanders. 

As the Buffs have become America’s most popular team, the commentary around Colorado has devolved into eye-rolling discord, mainly because those with the biggest pulpits don’t actually watch or care about college football. 

Case in point Monday. 

.@keyshawn: Coaches from other schools helped Oregon game plan to beat Colorado 👀 pic.twitter.com/qTrJDDIpnK

— UNDISPUTED (@undisputed) September 25, 2023

This is peak silliness, but it was yet again another example of the bad-faith talk around Deion Mania right now.

The Buffs have been the most beloved and hated team in recent college football memory, and that’s because Deion Sanders is the sun, and everything orbits around him. That’s not a pejorative. It’s reality. 

What he’s done thus far at Colorado is truly remarkable. He took over a moribund program that went 1-11 last season — a horrible record that still doesn’t quite accurately describe how bad they were in 2022 — and made the Buffs the most interesting team in the country a year later. 

He cobbled together a Frankenstein roster with a couple of star players (namely Travis Hunter and his son Shedeur Sanders) and a host of misfit toys and got that crew to buy into the notion they could go to TCU and shock the world in Week 1. 
And then they did. 

That’s the power of Prime. The Buffs are absolutely brazen and brash, but it was no gimmick they upset the Horned Frogs or outplayed Nebraska the next Saturday. 

As Colorado’s momentum swelled, so did its national interest — most of whom were not regular college football fans. Great! Welcome to the world’s most fun club! 

Only the interest and fandom did not come with the requisite reality from many of the biggest platforms. 

Colorado’s popularity versus true 2023 potential wasn’t being discussed in proper context on TV — on shows and during the actual game broadcasts. 

Folks were on TV and Twitter talking about Colorado winning the Pac-12 instead of noting that if Deion Sanders even takes this team to a bowl game it would be a monumental success in Year 1. 

Conversely, if you read columns here at On3 or elsewhere on the web, or listened to your favorite college football podcast, informed fans knew the uphill battle Sanders’ team faced. 

The win over Nebraska was great, but the Buffs displayed worrying signs against the Cornhuskers. For as fun as the postgame locker room celebration with Deion Sanders’ mom and the Rock was in the comeback against Colorado State, Colorado’s warts were even more exposed. 

Stevie Wonder could see what was coming. With Top 10 Oregon and USC up next on the schedule, the rent was about to become due for a team that had been playing with house money.

A blowout loss would not — and should not — diminish the special story of what Deion Sanders has quickly built at Colorado. Nor would it be the final chapter of the Buffs’ 2023 season. 

But there’s a reason Colorado was a 21-point underdog to Oregon — Coach Prime’s team wasn’t ready for primetime. Travis Hunter was hurt, and their OL issues, undersized front seven and overall lack of depth would prove too much against quality teams.

The result? A 42-6 curb-stomping that was neither surprising nor shocking.

The Ducks weren’t just fueled by Colorado’s players talking pregame smack or stomping on the ‘O’ logo. The better, deeper and more talented squad won. Handily.

And yet, most of the postgame commentary since Oregon’s blowout has been around Dan Lanning’s viral message to his team in the locker room. 

And while Lanning’s comments that “they’re fighting for clicks, we’re fighting for wins” and “we’re not about outside noise” look insincere considering Oregon had clearly kept the receipts, who cares. 

That’s what makes this sport fun. 

Ducks vs. Them: Game 4 Cinematic Recap. #GoDucks pic.twitter.com/5PgrZNoaNU

— Oregon Football (@oregonfootball) September 26, 2023

Others honed in on Hunter’s absence and how he would’ve made the difference (tell me you don’t understand football without telling me). Then there’s the aforementioned theory that coaches fed Lanning’s staff extra information to beat Colorado — something that Sanders said himself Monday that his staff does, too. 

“We call for information as well,” he said.  

Enough. 

Can we please stop with the lack of proper context around Colorado? Can we stop with the faux-outrage or victimization around Lanning’s audacity to motivate his team in the locker room? 

The team that was supposed to win big, did Saturday. Deion Sanders invites the smoke, and his team got it, and yet too many people — especially those who watch said TV programs — are incensed at some perceived slight at Coach Prime.  

There are very fair and nuanced discussions to be had around Deion Sanders saying “Teams are trying to beat me. They’re not trying to beat our team.” Because he’s right. 

There’s clearly schadenfreude among coaches wanting a piece of Prime. And the way in that requires far more characters than even a new extended Tweet or TV soundbite. 

But that’s not the commentary taking place. And it also doesn’t factor in what sort of team Colorado is — and isn’t in 2023. 

Instead,  can we just listen to what Deion Sanders said himself about Saturday’s outcome? 

“That was a really good old-fashioned butt-kicking. … Hats off to their coaching staff and their head coach, great job and they’re truly prepared,” Sanders said. 

“You better get me right now. This is the worst we gonna be. You better get me right now.”

Unlike what you’ll hear on TV, no lies told.