Deion Sanders has Big 12 media days message: 'I got that swagger back'
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FRISCO, TX – One year ago at this same time and place, Colorado football coach Deion Sanders attended Big 12 Conference football media days with a sweatsuit under his business suit to disguise the fact he had lost about 15 pounds.
He was recovering from bladder cancer back then. He looked a little weak and sometimes couldn’t stand up. But here he is now with a message for the masses, as delivered to a news conference to hundreds of reporters on Tuesday, July 7.
“Now I’m here with full strength, full energy,” Sanders said. “I got that thing back. I got that swagger back. I’ve got that dawg back. I got that charisma back.”
He said he “cannot wait to get back on that sideline and do our thing” after finishing 3-9 last year while he struggled to recover from having his bladder removed.
Just like he’s done after previous losing seasons in Boulder, he’s flipped the roster and brought in new coaches, including a new offensive coordinator (Brennan Marion) and defensive coordinator (Chris Marve).
But what makes this team any different from those other overhauled rosters from before? That’s what the news media who cover the Big 12 seem to be asking.
Low expectations for Deion Sanders’ fourth season at Colorado
A poll of USA TODAY Network reporters collectively predicted Colorado would finish 15th out of 16 teams this year, same as last year. No Colorado players were even selected to the All-Big 12 preseason team in either the USA TODAY Network poll or a poll of league media released by the league itself.
Colorado players noticed. Senior safety Ben Finneseth talked about it in the hot tub after a workout Monday with receiver Danny Scudero.
“It just pisses us off,” Finneseth told reporters Tuesday. “Like, it’s fine. Because we’re going to prove you wrong every time. So it’s just another motivator, and it makes us have to kick it into a higher gear.”
Deion Sanders has reason to believe
A reporter asked Sanders about what might surprise people about his team this year.
“We better win,” Sanders said. “That’s gonna be the surprise.”
The pieces are there, according to him and his players. For one, Sanders has a mostly new quarterback, redshirt freshman Julian Lewis, who started two games last year as Sanders struggled to find a replacement for his quarterback son Shedeur Sanders.
Lewis is still only 18 years old and has been praised by Marion for his progress in the coach’s Go-Go offensive system. Marion is part of the “best coaching staff I’ve had in my minute coaching career, and I’m excited about it,” Sanders said.
The Indiana model for Colorado?
On top of that, Sanders has a bevy of more than 40 new transfer players who were brought in under a plan similar to that used by Indiana on its run to the national championship. That plan favors “production over potential” when brining in new players. For example, 24 of Colorado’s 42 new scholarship transfers come from outside the Power Four conferences, according to USA TODAY Sports research. But almost all of them were former starters, including Scudero, a transfer from San Jose State who led the national with 108.1 receiving yards per game last year.
Finneseth noted that Indiana didn’t have many highly touted recruits out of high school.
“Half the guys that are here were zero-star recruits, and we don’t care,” Finneseth said. “We don’t care. Because this is not high school. This is college and it’s a different level. And so you’ve got to find something that’s gonna set you apart. … The way that Indiana played together, the way that they came together, that’s been our entire goal, the brotherhood they built.”
Defensive back Cree Thomas transferred to Colorado from Notre Dame and used the same word.
“Man, the brotherhood,” Thomas said Tuesday. “I think we brought in the right players. … We have the guys, and we’re coming together well. So I think that as that brotherhood grows, we’re gonna come together and we’re gonna be great this year.”
Why Deion Sanders is ‘so darn appreciative’
All of those new transfer players replace about 35 scholarship players who transferred off the team after last season, including 20 who left for other Power Four conference programs, such as offensive tackle Jordan Seaton (LSU) and last year’s leading tackler, safety Tawfiq Byard, who left for Texas A&M.
Colorado opens the season Sept. 3 at Georgia Tech on ESPN. It will be Sanders fourth season at Colorado after a 4-8 season in 2023 and 9-4 season in 2024.
“Colorado has given me a tremendous opportunity that I’m so darn appreciative of, and I want to live up and surpass the expectations,” Sanders said. “My younger self would be proud, would be proud that I was here last year fighting a battle called cancer and now I’m here at full strength.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Deion Sanders has Big 12 media days message: ‘I got that swagger back’
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