Deion Sanders can teach Kenny Dillingham a lesson on Saturday

Coach Prime is going to teach Coach KD a lesson on Saturday.

Deion Sanders will send his Colorado Buffaloes charging into Mountain America Stadium to face the Arizona State Sun Devils, giving Kenny Dillingham an opportunity to see what it looks like when a guy doesn’t give a good gosh darn about what outsiders have to say about him.

“You’ve got to see the invisible, think the unthinkable and do what hadn’t been done,” Sanders said in a recent X post. “You can and you will. Stay focused and don’t get distracted fighting meaningless battles that ain’t even in your weight division. You’re gonna succeed and have the peace you desire.”

It’s a message that Dillingham needs as he tries to lead ASU (1-4) out of a desert where optimism and wins are in short supply.

Colorado (3-2) is on a two-game losing streak and missing its best player, Travis Hunter, who’s recovering from a lacerated liver, but this is still a good team with one of the nation’s best quarterbacks in Shedeur Sanders.

Wrangling with the Buffaloes won’t be easy, but make no mistake, ASU can win.

“The key aspect of winning is responding,” Dillingham said. “Our guys are responding. From earlier in the year to now, there’s a drastically different look in the team’s eyes.”

Dillingham knows when to hold 'em

The Sun Devils bounced back from a debacle of a performance against Fresno State to play Southern California to a standstill in the first half two weeks ago, and ASU’s narrow road loss to Cal was the kind of game that could have gone either way with the right call — or lack thereof.

(Did the referees really overturn the Elijhah Badger touchdown for an illegal substitution? That was like seeing a teacher flunk a student who forgot to put the date on his paper.)

Kenny the Gambler is catching all sorts of criticism for his coaching style, which relies on taking big chances. The guy likes to go for it on fourth down so much, it’s like he thinks he can only punt once a game.

The unconventional strategy is only a problem because it hasn’t worked. It’s absolutely the right way to play.

Dillingham knows his squad doesn’t have much depth after multiple cycles of thin recruiting and a lack of incoming transfers thanks to a looming NCAA investigation into unproven 3-year-old allegations of wrongdoing.

Dillingham can’t win a protracted slugfest. He has to swing for knockouts. That involves taking risks like calling trick plays on third downs and going for it on fourth.

“We need to be more explosive,” Dillingham said this week. “That’s a challenge. I’ve got to be more creative getting our guys in space and more creative with a few tricks.”

Sanders, for his part, is all about risk, and he’s been conducting a master class on how to ignore the haters and focus on the man in the mirror(ed sunglasses).

Neon Deion has been criticized for his brash style, endorsing a fried chicken joint and embracing a rapper best known for a career-wrecking homophobic rant.

And if you think any of that bothers him, you don’t know Coach Prime.

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'You are guaranteed to win'

To him, all of this is part of a larger plan.

“When God fights for you, you are guaranteed to win,” he said on X.

The outspoken confidence, which haters consider cocky, brings attention to his reason for getting up in the morning.

The KFC commercial, which I think is an unnecessary concession to a harmful and false stereotype of Southern Blacks as boorish, is a way to bring money and visibility to himself, his program and players.

And allowing DaBaby to speak to his team before playing USC, despite the obvious objections from gay rights advocates, is a way to show that anything — no matter how bad it was in the moment — can be overcome with enough faith, grit and resilience.

Other coaches wouldn’t take these chances, but then again, other coaches aren’t Coach Prime, and I think that if Dillingham finds a little of this “je-ne-sais-quo-I-don’t-give-a-you-know-what,” he can improve the Sun Devils faster than a lizard climbs a hot cinder block wall.

Coach Prime is going to teach Coach KD a lesson on Saturday — of course, that lesson could come back to bite him in the scoreboard. Make no mistake, ASU can win this game.

Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Deion Sanders takes big risks, Kenny Dillingham should, too