There will be pressure surrounding Deion Sanders and Colorado this season. Sanders just refuses to call it that.
Asked during Colorado’s training camp stay in Colorado Springs whether he feels pressure to turn things around, Sanders immediately separated football expectations from the kind of pressure people face away from the field.
“I apply pressure. I don’t feel pressure,” Coach Prime said.
He pointed to a single mother struggling to provide for her family and someone in a hospital receiving devastating news before bringing the conversation back to football.
“That’s pressure,” Sanders said. “This is football. I’m really good at this. I can play this. I can coach this. I can do this.”
Sanders also made it clear he has little interest in measuring this team against what happened a year ago. When a follow-up question referenced the situation Sanders is facing now with the Buffaloes to last season, he quickly shut down the comparison.
“You so stuck on last year, and I’m gone,” Sanders said. “You have a whole new team. We have a whole new staff, and you still talking about last year. We don’t think like that, man.”
He then offered perhaps the clearest description of his approach.
“My neck...I could try my best to sit here and turn my neck all the way around, and it won’t go backwards,” Sanders said. “So, I’m right here, man. I’m right here.”
Colorado recruited for mentality
That forward-looking approach extends to the roster Sanders and his staff assembled.
“When we recruited, we recruited mentality,” Sanders said. “It wasn’t just size and stature and status of where they came from. It was a [mindset] that they displayed on the field.”
The head coach said that mentality was something he looked for during conversations with players and their families throughout the recruiting process.
“It was the mentality I was looking for in the conversations that we had,” Sanders said. “And all of those young men, they have that mentality. Even some of the ones that we held over...I look for mentality. I look for love of the game...because anybody that didn’t have it, we got rid of them.”
Sanders believes the result is a deeper, more physical offensive line. He said Colorado has eight or nine players who can legitimately start and described the group as “violent.”
A different Coach Prime entering this season
Sanders’ refusal to look backward also carries a personal element after the health challenges he dealt with over the past year.
“You know, last year this time I wasn’t able...I wasn’t as strong, as vibrant and as ready as I am right now,” Sanders said. “And I’m thankful for everything I’ve gone through.”
He said the experience taught him to take more time for himself and his family while strengthening his appreciation for his faith and the life he has. But he certainly has that swagger back that is unmistakably "Prime Time."
“The script that’s being written right now is going to be unbelievable,” Sanders said, “and I cannot wait to look at some of you and just smile.”
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