We need quick answer
Where could Deion Sanders land after Colorado?
The biggest story of the 2023 college football season so far has been Deion Sanders’ fast start at Colorado. Entering his first game as a heavy underdog against TCU, the Buffaloes put on a show and upset the Horned Frogs in a 45-42 thriller. They then followed that up by beating down ancient rival Nebraska 36-14 in their home opener on Saturday.
Coach Prime has shown immediate proof of concept at CU and has generated tons of excitement around the program not seen since the Bill McCartney days. Stars like Travis Hunter and his son Shedeur Sanders have put themselves into the Heisman Trophy conversation while the nation is starting to learn the names of skill position weapons like Dylan Edwards, Jimmy Horn Jr., and Xavier Weaver. Pretty impressive stuff for just two weeks of a coaching tenure right? So let’s blow it all up.
The college football coaching carousel is unrelenting and with the stress of recruiting and the transfer portal, we’re seeing programs pull the plug on struggling head coaches as early as September. There’s a good chance that at this very moment, the power brokers of a struggling program are looking at Sanders’ quick success at Colorado and want to duplicate what’s happening in Boulder, CO. There’s also a chance that Coach Prime is being discussed as a potential replacement when their longtime head coach steps down.
For this exercise, I’ll throw out some programs that could pick up the phone for Sanders if he is a one-and-done at CU. One would assume that he isn’t leaving his current situation unless it’s for a well funded, blue blood program sitting near the top of the food chain in the sport.
Year Two of the Billy Napier era at Florida is underway and the former Louisiana head coach has emphasized patience as he slowly builds the program from the ground up. He went 6-7 in his first season in Gainesville and had to navigate blunders like the Jaden Rashada NIL fiasco. The Gators got thumped in their season opener against Utah, once again illustrating that this is going to be a long build back to national relevance.
But what if they decided to hit the big red button and blow it all up for Deion?
This is an SEC school after all and deep within the fan psyches of every elite program in that league is the desire to buck restraint by firing the head coach, buyout money be damned. By going all in on the Sanders experiment, the Gators would be bringing the North Fort Myers native back to his home state, where he would have very little difficulty pulling elite recruiting classes.
