Two star Colorado football star freshmen, cornerback Cormani McClain and wideout Omarion Miller, didn’t see the field until Week 5 — and when they did, the pair delivered in a major way; with the latter amassing nearly 200 receiving yards and a touchdown and the former whose Trojans offensive counterpart proved tough to pass to most plays the Lakeland product was in man coverage.
Andscape’s Jean-Jacques Taylor provided the reasons why Coach Prime didn’t feel the two had earned a chance to step into Travis Hunter’s shoes on both sides of the ball in Week 3 after the injury happened via a dirty hit from CSU DB Henry Blackburn and in Week 4 during an eventual 42-6 blowout loss to Oregon.
“Freshman receiver Omarion Miller, a four-star recruit from Louisiana, didn’t catch a pass in Colorado’s first four games because he struggled to learn the playbook, and coach Deion Sanders didn’t like his practice habits,” Taylor wrote. “Freshman cornerback Cormani McClain, a five-star recruit from Florida, didn’t play a snap in Colorado’s first three games, partly because Sanders didn’t like his practice habits. See, Sanders refuses to indulge his players. He demands players prepare and practice to the standard that helped him become a Hall of Fame player. If they don’t, they sit until they do — and it doesn’t matter how many stars a player has next to his name coming out of high school. He’s swayed by performance, not reputation.”
Star Colorado football freshmen learn what tough love looks like the ‘Prime Time’ way
Perhaps deep down, Coach Prime was hedging against the possibility of McClain and Miller getting the yips during a celebrity-packed Rocky Mountain Showdown in Boulder, and then further protecting them from Bo Nix’s offense and Dan Lanning’s defense in Eugene, Oregon on September 23.
If that was the play, and a pressure-free environment against reigning Heisman winner Caleb Williams and USC at home was the perfect time to unleash the blue chips.
Obviously, the two just needed to excise their respective demons to get to that point.