Coach Prime accused of besmirching and sullying hearts of cut Colorado transfers

The 2022 Colorado football players who Coach Prime told to hit the portal had their hearts “besmirched and sullied” according to Mike Farrell Sports’ Scott Salomon — who doesn’t believe Deion Sanders deserved the Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year Award for his coaching job at CU in 2023.

“In 2023, [Sports Illustrated] (published by the Arena Group, the same publisher as this very website), gave the (Sportsperson of the Year Award) to Deion Sanders for the work that he has done at Colorado during the calendar year 2023,” Salomon prefaced before saying, “Let’s examine what Prime did in 2023.

“First, upon arrival in Boulder, he besmirched and sullied the hearts of 64 Buffaloes players who had a dream to play for the University of Colorado. He jettisoned them out like packages UPS will be delivering for Christmas. He then went to the transfer portal to get players that he hand-selected to make the Buffaloes a better, championship-caliber team. However, by season’s end, he called out his offensive line and said that they all needed to be replaced and that the replacements were coming.”

Coach Prime will forever be remembered for going too hard at 2022 Colorado football roster

Coach Prime has just about everything he does questioned, but the most justifiable witchhunt he’s ever been a part of was his treatment of the 2022 Buffs who he didn’t feel met his new standard for the University of Colorado’s football program.

Sanders accused that roster of not loving the sport and described their eyes as “dead.”

“It was tremendously tough, because you had some young men that just didn’t want to play the game,” Coach Prime said (h/t USA Today). “They didn’t love football. It’s hard for me to be effective if you don’t love it, if you don’t like it, if you don’t want to live it. That’s tough. That’s tremendously tough, when you’re looking at a body of just dead eyes, that’s tough on any coach, not just me. I’m pretty sure a multitude of coaches have experienced that until they can clean house and get the roster that they want. It was tremendously challenging day by day. I’m happy with what I’m seeing every morning now. I really am.”

It was too far, though the same could be said of the accusations that he broke these kids’ spirits or that he besmirched or sullied anything.