Behind the flashy endorsements and media hype, Coach Prime’s unconventional culture faces a reckoning as locker room fractures and mounting losses expose the fragility of his program.
Editor's note: This is part one of a three-part series entitled "Deion Sanders has lost touch with football reality at Colorado."
There is good news following the most recent post-game press conference with Deion Sanders. The Hall of Famer is starting to show up when previously it would’ve only been Coach Prime. While that may not make sense to everyone, Deion Sanders and Coach Prime are not the same person. Coach Prime almost everyone knows, very few people know or even see Deion Sanders publicly.
When he appears without sunglasses and a hat, there is a decent chance we will hear from Sanders, instead of Prime. After a football question about next steps early in the presser, Sanders appeared. “Let me digest this game,” Sanders said. “Let me get all this out of me. I’m a little upset right now. But I’m going to be kind. You guys are some of my favorites. All of us are going back to the same destination. Let me think that through on the plane.”
When Sanders shows up, the persona and marketable sayings are less. His volume and tone are different. While the persona dates back to the 1980s out of a perceived need, the Sanders appearances might reveal that the persona is not exactly necessary anymore. When Sanders shows up, he comes across almost exclusively like a football coach and less of a ‘personality’. The compulsion to be more than that, doesn’t allow “Deion” to be the only voice.
Deflecting and peculiar answers to post game questions
Everyone wants to win. No one likes to lose. Everyone understands that a loss is a loss, no matter the margin. Most players and coaches throughout history have believed you can learn more from a loss than you can from winning. When Sanders claims there are no silver linings, nothing to build on, because they lost, it’s another aspect of Sanders’ rhetoric that raises questions.
Sanders often reminds the media that there are aspects that we ‘aren’t privy to’ because he doesn’t allow the media to watch the substantive aspects of practice, or we aren’t on the headset during a game. How is that any different from any other program? Yet it is said like it is new information. How often do you hear playoff or conference winning coaches even go to the trouble to mention it? Almost never, and why? That doesn’t change the equation in the slightest.
For the second time, Sanders revealed that he told his quarterback, “You don’t have to be the man, you just have to feed the men." The first time he told Julian Lewis to just be Magic Johnson. While the point guard analogy isn’t lost, telling him to just be Magic Johnson is asking him to do more than just get his weapons involved. That also happens to be the task definition of what a quarterback always does.
Check over part two of the series.
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