Future Big 12 rival almost hired Deion Sanders before Colorado hiring
A year ahead of his Colorado football hiring, Deion Sanders was nearly hired by a future Big 12 rival and Week 1 opponent in 2022 and 2023, TCU, and was a finalist for the Horned Frogs’ head coaching position; one Sonny Dykes ultimately claimed before leading TCU to the College Football Playoff Championship game. As Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger highlights, Coach Prime’s interview process was one in a million.
“Sanders, then completing his first fall season as Jackson State’s coach, was recovering from surgery for blood clots in his foot during his interview to replace Gary Patterson as TCU’s coach,” Dellenger prefaced before saying, “On the other end of the hour-long FaceTime call was TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati, who originally planned to fly to Jackson for an in-person interview before the coach’s health issues.
“Hospital or not, Sanders left Donati ‘blown away’ by his vision and his plan, so much so that he was one of four finalists for the gig. And while Donati eventually hired another candidate (Sonny Dykes), the athletic director told anyone who’d listen the same refrain about Sanders.”
Colorado football head coach Deion Sanders pulled an insane move during the TCU interview process
Sanders, as Dellenger revealed via a Coach Prime confidant, pulled an insane move during the interview process with TCU: withholding that he was in the hospital dealing with a leg/foot issue that would eventually cost him several toes due to amputation.
“We didn’t tell the TCU folks he was in the hospital,” Constance Schwartz-Morini, Sanders’ longtime manager and confidant, said.
Ultimately, TCU is better off for having made its first CFP appearance as a program, and Colorado football has already benefitted from employing Sanders as head coach with their impending jump to the Big 12.
It’ll be years before we know if this was a true win-win coaching trade-off, but Dykes and TCU already have their win in the head-to-head rivalry that started off in 2022 and will continue into the future with both programs sharing a conference. September 2, with the odds against them, CU has the chance to go out on the road and steal the college football spotlight during Week 1 of the 2023 campaign.
That’d be a fitting start to the “Prime Time” era in Boulder; not Fort Worth.