With Deion Sanders at the helm, Colorado football could be 'game changer' for Big 12

Say what you will about Deion Sanders.

Plenty of people already have.

Since he became the Colorado coach and started trying to fix the Buffaloes, he has become the talk of the college football world. Some have extolled him for putting the transfer portal into overdrive as he attempts to make Colorado competitive again. Others have excoriated him for running off so many players that the number of returning letter winners can be counted on two hands.

Even OU coach Brent Venables took a shot at Coach Prime during Big 12 Media Days. Asked during an interview with KREF about his approach to roster building, Venables ultimately turned to Sanders.

“I was unlike Deion,” Venables said. “I gave guys 12 months of grace to figure it out.”

Too bad the Sooners will be on their way out of the Big 12 at the same time the Buffaloes will be coming in. The spice between Venables and Sanders, who fired back a few days later, would’ve added some heat to the proceedings.

Still, when news surfaced last week that Colorado would be returning the Big 12, that summertime squabble wasn’t the thing that popped to mind. Neither was the way Coach Prime has gone about his business in Boulder.

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Instead, what I’ll say about Sanders is this: his hiring is a sign Colorado is serious about having a good football program again.

Now, I’m not predicting Sanders is going to get the Buffs back to the glory days. Colorado may never again contend for national championships much less win one like it during the Bill McCartney era. It might never again have a string of players like Darian Hagan and Eric Bieniemy, Rashaan Salaam and Kordell Stewart.

But in hiring and empowering Sanders, Colorado is at least acting like it wants to return to relevance some day.

Colorado has become such an afterthought in college football in recent years. That tends to happen when you’ve only had two winning seasons in the past 17 years; one of the two was the COVID-shortened season of 2020 in which the Buffs were only 4-2.

Last season, the Buffs went 1-11, and of those losses, only one was by less than three touchdowns.

The margins of defeat got worse as the season went on. In its last four games, Colorado lost by 39, 38, 47 and 42 points. Yes, the Buffs played ranked teams in each of those contests, but not being competitive in any of them is not good.

Results like those can’t be boiled down to any one problem, but clearly, Colorado didn't have near enough talent.

Enter, Sanders.

Colorado went out and got a coach who got talented players to not only consider Jackson State but also play for the FCS program at the Jackson, Mississippi HBCU. Sanders convinced numerous recruits who had Power Five offers to play for him at Jackson State.

The difficulty of that task can’t be understated.

Lots of players picked Jackson State because of Sanders.

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Colorado leaders knew they needed a football coach who could convince recruits and transfers to come to Boulder despite how bad the program had become. They needed someone with a personality and vision big enough to obstruct players’ view of the suck.

Sanders was that coach, and Colorado paid handsomely for him, $29.5 million over five years. At the time his contract was done, Sanders had the third-highest salary in the Pac-12 behind only Lincoln Riley at USC and Kyle Whittingham at Utah, who are much more established as Power Five head coaches.

The Denver Post has reported that Sanders’ largest financial package Colorado has ever given to a football coach.

“This is the time for us to put all the chips in the center,” Colorado athletic director Rick George told reporters when Sanders’ hire was announced.

Some Buff faithful might argue that time should’ve come about a decade ago, but at least Colorado has made moves that signal a desire for change and a willingness to do something different.

Now, it’s anyone’s guess how long Sanders will be in Boulder. He seems like someone who always has his eye on the next shiny thing, and he has been dealing with blood clots for several years, too. Two years ago, he had two toes amputated, then a couple of weeks ago had surgery to remove a blood clot and straighten two hammer toes. Sanders says he will also need another surgery to remove more clots in his legs.

It’s anyone’s guess how long his Colorado tenure will be.

Or how successful he will be.

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But good news for the Big 12: Colorado looks interested in playing good football again. It was big for the league to poach a school from another Power Five league, but if that school also has a competitive football program, all the better.

Colorado seems to be taking the first necessary steps to return to that level.

For Colorado's part, they believe being in the Big 12 will help them get where they want to go. They say leaving the Pac-12 for the Big 12 will open more doors to recruits in the fertile football grounds of Florida and Texas, where the league has schools and Sanders has deep ties.

“This move is a game changer,” Sanders told 247 Sports, “and we plan on changing the game.”

Bravado from Sanders is nothing new.

But showing signs of life? Trying to return to relevance? Doing things differently?

That is something new for Colorado in these years of football malaise. Whether you say Sanders is a genius or a goof, I say he signals a change in Boulder. Signals not only hope for better days but also action to try and make it happen.

I say good for the Buffs.

Good for the Big 12, too.

Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok or on Threads at jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Deion Sanders coaching Colorado football will be huge deal for Big 12