Deion Sanders’ eyebrow-raising take on CU coaching job: ‘What do I have to prove?’

Deion Sanders doesn’t believe he has anything left to prove to the sporting world, sharing the eyebrow-raising take with Sports Illustrated’s Richard Johnson when talking about his “why” behind taking the Colorado football head coaching job.

“Well, when you said a proving ground, I’m trying to figure out what do I have to prove?” Sanders said. “Like you said that I had to prove myself to somebody, like what do I have to prove? I’ve been in professional football for 14 years. I’ve been in college for another four years, so I think that gives me 17. I’ve been on television for 18 years. I think the credentials are good. I got a couple of jackets in the closet I ain’t buy. One of them, I think, is from a College Hall of Fame, the other one from a NFL Hall of Fame, and I’m thinking, one from high school in Florida State Hall of Fame. I think I got this, dawg.”

Sanders moved on from Jackson State before winning a Celebration Bowl, so winning a championship is something that Coach Prime could prove to himself and the college football world — but never doing so will have zero bearing on whether or not history will look back at “Prime Time” as one of the all-time sporting greats.

Deion Sanders ‘all in’ on Colorado football head coaching gig

For anyone worrying about whether Sanders is more interested in his image than his job performance, Coach Prime had a message: he’s all in on doing right by the Colorado football coaching job he has been bestowed in Boulder.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Sanders prefaced before saying, “I just became Coach Prime to the nation, but I’ve been Coach Prime for probably the last 20 years, coaching youth football all the way up through high school and junior high. So I not only love what I do, but I do what I love, so I’m all in.”

For how long he’ll be all in is the great question the future will answer in Northern Colorado.