Deion Sanders has unusual recruiting formula for Colorado football
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BOULDER, Colo. – Deion Sanders’ grand experiment at Colorado has set up quite a contrast with the rest of major college football.
The Buffaloes have been bringing in so many new transfer players from other colleges that it almost seems like a test run for a new model of team building.
It also tees up a big question:
Is “Coach Prime” outsmarting everyone else right now with his recruiting and roster strategy as Colorado’s new head coach? Or is he climbing a slippery slope?
“Once you start getting off the established path, and you think you’ve got it figured out more than everyone else does, obviously there’s a huge potential risk there, and I see that risk for the Buffaloes and Coach Prime,” former Colorado and NFL linebacker Chad Brown told USA TODAY Sports.
The flip side of that risk is that it comes with the potential for big rewards – fielding a winning team after last year’s team finished 1-11.
What is his strategy?
Just a few years ago, the conventional way to win was to recruit better high school players and nurture them along for four or five years until they left.
CU FOOTBALL:Fans in Boulder are going crazy for Deion as spring game arrives
Sanders instead has pushed an instant rebuilding strategy that he piloted at his previous job at Jackson State. He calls it his 40-40-20 formula. His goal, he said, is to recruit a team with 40% undergraduate transfers, 40% graduate transfers and 20% from high schools.
Since his hiring in early December, he’s hauled in more transfers than any other team this year (28) with a transfer class that ranks No. 1 in the nation, according to 247Sports.
“We’ve been pretty successful,” Sanders said this week. “I can’t tell you everything, but we’re pretty good.”
Others have much different ways to build programs, such as Matt Rhule, the new coach at Nebraska, or Kirby Smart, the coach at Georgia.
But this is what college football is now – free-agent players who want to win right away and make some money on the side from their names, images and likenesses (NIL).
Sanders recognized this, took advantage of the transfer portal and rode it into a sold-out spring football game here Saturday at Folsom Field.
The big question is how it will go when they start playing real games in September and beyond.
What makes it so different?
Players switching teams from other four-year colleges wasn’t that common until 2021, when an NCAA rule change allowed players to transfer without first sitting out a year of competition.
Some coaches still want to build with high school players, including Smart, who won a national title in January after not adding any transfer players the year before.
“I’m really big on getting the core of your team from high school, developing them the right way,” Smart said earlier this month on SiriusXM Sports. “It really boils down to who … you bring in your organization, because if they come in looking to leave, or if they come in expecting to only play as a freshman and…
Read More: Deion Sanders has unusual recruiting formula for Colorado football 2023-04-22 10:04:13