Deion Sanders has shown tremendous improvement in key area from last year's CSU matchup

Deion Sanders isn't taking the bait from CSU this time around. Colorado's head coach has seemingly learned that it isn't always worth it to engage in a back-and-forth with the opposing team given his behavior leading up to the 2024 Rocky Mountain Showdown.

“It makes it personal again," Sanders said of Rams quarterback Brayden Fowler and wide receiver Tory Horton claiming CU was playing for clicks and should've been "murdered" by CSU in 2023 (h/t On3). "It makes you think like, ‘Oh, OK.’ Because you analyze it as an adult. Kids don’t. They just get mad. You analyze it as an adult and you say, ‘OK, I see why you said that.’ And you know what’s behind it. But you try to understand that those are kids. Don’t do it.

“You want to do it. … So I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to take that bait. That’s too easy.”

Deion Sanders, CSU's Jay Norvell went to war before 2023 Rocky Mountain Showdown

Sanders has struck a much different tone for the rematch. But the original Rocky Mountain Showdown matchup between his Buffs and Jay Norvell's CSU Rams had as dirty and personal of a build-up as they come.

Norvell called out Sanders' mother for the way she raised Deion.

"I don't care if they hear it in Boulder: I told them, I took my hat off and I took my glasses off and I said, 'When I talk to grownups, I take my hat and my glasses off,'" Norvell said. "That's what my mother taught me." 

Sanders fired back, his team took it personally, and the end result was an instant classic double-overtime 43-35 win at Folsom Field.

The 2024 matchup has the opposite vibe. Norvell's players may have tried to go viral with their tall talk, but Norvell said he has "no feelings" toward Coach Prime during Mountain West media days in July.

“I don’t have any feelings for Deion Sanders, I really don’t,” Norvell said when asked if his relationship with Coach Prime has changed since last year’s Rocky Mountain Showdown (h/t Denver Gazette). “I don’t think about Deion Sanders unless you guys ask me a question about him. No, nothing’s changed.”

Coming off the Nebraska loss, Sanders knows nothing is won through the media. What happens on the field is all that matters and what will define his coaching legacy.

Talk is cheap. Especially when one side is sending cheap shots purely for the purpose of rattling the opposite side.

Good on Coach Prime for being above it all this time around.