Powerhouse Pac-12 coach sends strong message praising Deion Sanders

USC’s Lincoln Riley had high praise for Colorado football head coach Deion Sanders at Pac-12 Media Day — with the former perennial Big 12 championship head coach at Oklahoma respecting the headline-grabbing methods of roster-building.

“I give (Sanders) credit,” Riley said (h/t Buffs Beat). “We all know what the rules are. We all know what the parameters are. And our job is to build the best teams that we can for the universities that give us the opportunity to do it. No excuses. There obviously needed to be a roster transformation there in coach Sanders’ opinion, and he went about it aggressively. Obviously, the success of that for us or anybody else will be determined on the field as time goes on. From the outside looking in, they’ve done a great job transforming that roster and bringing in some really good players.” Sanders certainly got a much different opinion from Oklahoma’s current coach, Brent Venables, who passive-aggressively sniped “Prime Time” on July 17.

“We’re another year in establishing our standards and our culture and our values,” Venables prefaced before saying, “That matters. A year ago, I challenged the guys. I wasn’t like Deion that gave guys a bunch of pink slips.”

Colorado football getting respect with Deion Sanders at the Buffaloes’ helm

Venables is the only big-name coach who has taken aim at Coach Prime since his Boulder move; with Nick Saban famously going after his Jackson State recruiting class and accusing Sanders of paying for it while “Prime Time” hailed from Mississippi’s capital city.

Not only did Riley give a shoutout to Sanders, but the coach whose team actually got into the 2022 College Football Playoff, TCU’s Sonny Dykes, also gave the metaphorical cap-tip for the recruiting efforts Coach Prime displayed on the trail in a short window since his December hiring.

“They’re going to have a bunch of good players,” Dykes said on July 12 (h/t Footballscoop). “One thing (Deion’s) done a tremendous job of is attracting players — a lot of really high-quality transfers. They’re going to be hard to evaluate. You’re going to be watching like 60 different teams, trying to figure out who these guys are and what they do.”

“Prime Time” has his peers’ approval, minus Venables. That’s for sure. But he needs the same from his players if CU is about to exceed its modest expectations in 2023.