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Deion Sanders interviewed at Arkansas before taking over as Jackson State coach, per report

craig meyer, usa today network
·3 min read

Several years ago, Deion Sanders was interviewed by a southern college that was looking to the Pro Football Hall of Famer to potentially revitalize its proud-but-floundering football program.

In this instance, though, it wasn’t Jackson State — it was Arkansas out of the Southeastern Conference.

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Less than a year before Jackson State hired Sanders in September 2020, the Razorbacks interviewed him in 2019 for its head-coaching vacancy. The report comes from longtime Arkansas Democrat-Gazette sports columnist Wally Hall, during a Wednesday appearance on "The Paul Finebaum Show."

Hall described Sanders’ meeting with Razorbacks officials as a “courtesy interview” facilitated by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, an Arkansas graduate, donor and former player who also is friends with Sanders.

“From all things I heard, the interview was awesome,” Hall said. “He blew them away with everything but experience, which he had none.”

At the time, Sanders had no college coaching experience, having only worked at the grassroots and high school levels. Arkansas was coming off back-to-back two-win seasons and had gone 13-51 in SEC play since 2012. The school ultimately hired then-Georgia offensive line coach Sam Pittman, who has since gone 21-18 three games into his fourth season.

Razorbacks athletic director Hunter Yurachek confirmed to Sports Illustrated in October 2020 that he had interviewed Sanders for the position.

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“I was thoroughly impressed with Deion,” he said. “I didn’t think this was the right starting point for him as a collegiate head coach in the SEC, but I think Jackson State is a great landing spot. Some are going to say this is a publicity stunt. Yes, it’s going to sell more tickets, but the time I was able to visit with Deion, he knows football.”

It didn’t take Sanders long to find a school that not only recognized that knowledge, but was willing to hire him.

In three years at Jackson State, Sanders went 27-6, guiding the program of Walter Payton, Lem Barney, Robert Brazile and Jackie Slater to SWAC championships and Celebration Bowl appearances in each of his final two seasons. Prior to Sanders’ arrival, the Tigers hadn’t won the SWAC since 2007.

Jackson State’s success made what was already a popular team with a large fan base that much more of a must-see entity. In 2022, the Tigers averaged 44,354 fans at their home games, breaking their own FCS record set the previous year. Jackson State led the FCS in attendance in the two years prior to Sanders’ hiring, averaging 33,762 fans per game in 2019.

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Sanders left the Tigers for Colorado in December. Three games into his first season, the Buffaloes are 3-0 and ranked No. 19 nationally after finishing 1-11 in 2022 (with only one of those 11 losses coming by fewer than 23 points).

“They were impressed with him, his enthusiasm, his knowledge,” Hall said of Arkansas’ interview with Sanders. “But if you’ve never recruited, you’ve never sat in a team meeting for college coaches, broke down film of a college game, it would just be hard to take that chance.”

Jackson State, however, did take that chance. And the results speak for themselves.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Deion Sanders interviewed at Arkansas before hiring at Jackson State