Love him or hate him, it’s hard to argue that Deion Sanders isn’t great for College Football.
Coach Prime has made friends and enemies seemingly across the College Football landscape. He’s big, he’s brash, and he knows he draws in the eyeballs. Week after week, it seems like Colorado football is smashing viewership records. Whether it’s to see Colorado crash and burn like last week, or see how they stack up against elite competition, or to see magical 2-way player Travis Henry, there’s plenty of reasons to tune into The Coach Prime Show every week. (And by that we mean, the Colorado Buffaloes every week, of course…)
The bigger question isn’t whether or not Colorado can make the CFB Playoff this year, or even if they can finish in the AP Top 25. The bigger question is whether or not this is good for College Football. College Football has gotten far too regional in recent years. It’s been dominated by teams like Alabama, or Georgia, or Ohio State, or Michigan, or Clemson when Trevor Lawrence was there. The entire season was essentially a race to see who could lose to these teams last. That’s why huge swaths of the country don’t care about the sport, even today. Deion and Colorado are changing that. We’ve already established that they aren’t the best team. But they’re interesting. In their first game against TCU, the announcer, Joel Klatt, who happens to be one of the smartest analysts in college football, said on air that he wasn’t sure how Colorado would perform, but that we’d all find out together. There’s something to that. Everyone loves a good Cinderella story once in a while. And while Coach Prime can understandably rub some people the wrong way, he’s clearly got buy-in from the entire team. Both of his sons and the rest of the team are filled with confidence. As importantly, stars and celebrities want to see them play! Think LeBron or Will Ferrell ever would’ve considered watching Colorado before, or any game that is expected to be relatively one sided? Of course not. That’s the Deion Effect.
The bottom line is that Deion Sanders is great for the sport. His team will only get better in the weeks and years ahead. However, for now, let’s all just sit back and enjoy the ride. No one knows how long this will go on for.