Deion Sanders wasn't going to let a reporter say to his face that Coach Prime's son, Shilo Sanders, was a distraction for the Buffs this offseason due to his legal troubles. Colorado's head coach let the reporter have it at Big 12 media days for insinuating such a thing.
“What distraction?” Deion Sanders asked the reporter (h/t USA Today). “Shilo’s good. You know what I want you to do? I want you to do this for me: I want you to do your homework and do a whole investigation on that and then write that. I mean the whole complete investigation on what truly happened.”
Meanwhile, Shilo displayed great media savvy in explaining why he wasn't speaking much on the case.
“Honestly, that kind of stuff, like, you can’t, you’re not gonna win a court case on social media,” Shilo prefaced before saying, “At the end of the day everybody is gonna know the truth about everything, you know? So there’s no point in just going out of my way to do that. So everything’s good.”
Shilo Sanders' injury a bigger concern than his legal troubles
The biggest distraction Shilo would be causing the team -- and in truth, a team that's prepared from the first guy on the depth chart down to the scout team shouldn't allow one player's status to distract them, sidebar -- would be his shoulder injury.
A will-he-won't-he narrative does no one good. Addressing whether or not he can start the season healthy is infinitely more impactful on Colorado's season than what's happening off the field -- and what can't keep him off of it right now.
We'll probably get closer to the start of the season before we know anything definitive, but Shilo having denied it can keep him out for any time at all was a shocker to say the least, given the circumstances.