Deion Sanders is ruthless with Colorado football. Surely you're not surprised | Toppmeyer
Deion Sanders warned he’d be ruthless, and by shuttling droves of his inherited players into the transfer portal, the first-year Colorado football coach is doing what he promised.
The unconcealed way Sanders cut players after Colorado's spring game is equal parts jarring and refreshingly honest.
The blowback endured for cutting scholarship players four months before the season will quiet down, and Sanders will be judged by the results of the sweeping overhaul he vowed to engineer.
For years, coaches have nudged scholarship players off rosters to clear room for transfers or recruits. Within the industry, this roster runoff is known as “processing” a player.
Coaches often process a player covertly. A coach may quietly inform an underperforming player that they don’t factor into the team’s plans, explaining that the player would be wise to consider a transfer. Then, the player announces he’s transferring, as if it’s his idea.
That the player got “processed” stays quiet. This allows a coach to avoid public backfire, while the player maintains the ruse that he’s transferring of his own choice.
Coach Prime doesn’t do understated, though. He’s not sheepish. He welcomes the attention his roster purge spurred.
Sanders, shortly after Colorado hired him from Jackson State, declared he was bringing his own luggage.
“And it's Louis (Vuitton),” he said.
If that metaphor didn’t register, Sanders spelled out a plan to clean house.
“Those of you that we don't run off, we're going to try to make you quit,” he told his team in December.
Now, he’s cut many of those who didn’t quit.
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NCAA rules give these castoffs the option of remaining at Colorado on scholarship as a student not on the football team, but most will pursue a roster spot elsewhere.
Sanders stripped bare the phony facade of amateurism to reveal what most players know to be true: College football is big business.
“It’s a job. We understood,” LaToya Smith told USA TODAY Sports. Her son, Xavier, was among the players culled.
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Did Sanders afford his inherited players a fair shake? Probably not. Some of the cut players or their parents painted a picture of Sanders favoring players he’d brought in. That Sanders didn’t bother to get to know the players he inherited before he promised to trim the roster.
But, Colorado fired Karl Dorrell because he didn’t assemble a winning roster, and it tapped Sanders to evoke change.
Executives hired to an underperforming company are known to clean house. It’s not personal. Just business.
Guardrails that once curtailed roster cuts were removed
Although processing a player is a longstanding maneuver, until recently, safeguards were in place to prevent this from occurring at such a staggering rate:
Until 2021, undergraduate transfers were required to obtain a waiver or else sit out a season. This dissuaded player movement. It also deterred coaches from cutting players. Without the help of immediately eligible undergraduate transfers, first-year coaches required inherited players to bridge the gap. Now that transfers are ensured immediate eligibility, the deterrent toward cutting players is removed.
Programs were previously limited to adding 25 newcomers per year as either recruits or transfers. That, too, curtailed a coach’s desire to cut players. Why cut players if you are limited by how many replacements you can add? Last May, though, the NCAA removed the 25-player signing cap for at least two years. Those who supported the change said coaches needed the signing cap removed so they could adequately replace the increasing sum of transferring players. But, the cap removal also incentivized cutting players, which further fuels the portal.
Sanders is no mealy mouthed coach. He said what he was going to do, then carried it out. He’s taking advantage of the NCAA’s relaxed transfer rules to swap out his roster.
And is it any wonder why Sanders desired a facelift within a program that finished 1-11 last season? His ruthless approach could be just what’s required for a program that enjoyed national relevance in the late 1980s through the mid-90s, before becoming an afterthought throughout the past two decades, then hitting rock bottom last season.
Colorado’s performance next fall will determine whether the juice was worth the squeeze, but the Buffaloes’ transfer class has received a good report card. The class is ranked No. 1 by 247Sports. That’s partly influenced by the sheer quantity of transfers added, but Sanders also added some quality.
In transforming Jackson State, Sanders showed he knows how to attract talent.
Deion Sanders’ approach is a gamble
Sanders’ bounty comes at a cost. Since his hire, 53 Buffaloes entered the portal, according to On3.com. That includes 30 departures since the April 22 spring game.
Not all of those players were cut, but many were.
Players know the drill. Coaches may speak of fostering a family atmosphere, but that loosely translates to building a winning culture that features talented players who make the coach look good.
By the time Sanders’ reassembly is complete, more than 80% of Colorado’s scholarship players may be newcomers.
Still, Sanders could encounter trouble assembling quality depth. The transfer market does not feature an endless supply of goods.
The portal closed to new entries this week, and Sanders will face competition in his quest to secure the portal’s remaining jewels. In carrying out his plan, Sanders oozes confidence, but that’s Prime, right? Blunt, aggressive, magnetic, unapologetic. No way would Sanders approach this rebuild timidly.
Sanders’ spring cleaning sent Colorado’s old luggage to college football’s version of a Goodwill store. He’ll be judged on whether his new luggage is Louis or just a cheap imitation, hastily acquired.
Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Deion Sanders is ruthless at Colorado football. You can't be surprised
