Prime Time Colorado

The Colorado Buffaloes have reportedly offered their head coaching job to Deion Sanders in a no brainer move. This is right move for a floundering 'power 5' school that has been anything but. Let's ignore for a second that Colorado has only had three winning records since 2002 and is 1-4 in the bowls over those 20 years and that Jackson State has been 26-5 under Sanders in the almost three seasons at the helm because this is more than about wins and losses.

In today's version of college football, in the NIL era, the head of your program needs to bring juice as much as success, and there's no denying that Prime Time will bring energy to a program devoid of it. Forget the NIL money, the social impact and just the fact that the number one recruit in the country, Travis Hunter, committed to Jackson State. That is tangible evidence of the effect Prime Time brings to the program he runs, on top of the wins. That is something the boosters can get behind to fuel commitment to bring in better recruiting classes.

For your head coach, especially coming into a down program, you find yourself in the chicken or egg scenario. Do wins raise the energy of the program or does raising the energy bring about wins? In the same week that Nebraska announced Matt Rhule as their hire, a great one for Nebraska, you see the potential for both. Nothing against Rhule, who is a great college coach, but he has established the type of culture that builds programs to wins, look no further than what he did at Baylor. As a Purdue fan I acknowledge they made a great hire when the Big Ten West is wide open.

That's not to say that I think Prime Time won't find some immediate success, but the big test will be bringing back excitement in the PAC12 as USC looks on a great trajectory along with solid programs in Oregon, UCLA and Utah (though USC and UCLA are on their way out with potentially more) Colorado has become a floundering program in the cellar of a conference in flux, another check in the pro column for hiring Sanders. That's a headline for the conference as a whole looking to stabilize in the uncertain era of this next wave of potential super conferences.

The criticism that has come from the rumors swirling around Sanders moving up programs is his lack of experience. Lost in all this, and credit Sanders deserves, is the coach staff he built. While perhaps lacking name value, he brought in a lot of experience on his staff and the results speak for themselves. Who knows until it's official which coaches he'll bring with him, but I don't doubt he'll be able to draw good coaches to Boulder, Colorado. It's a credit to his alter ego to realize he needs a good staff and went out and hired them.

A positive sign for some quick success at Colorado is also that college football now has free agency with the new transfer rules. A big contributor to Jackson State's success has been their use of the transfer portal. That's the presence of Deion Sanders as coach and lends the ability to inject some proven commodities into a program that doesn't have much to work with. We saw Lane Kiffin do the exact same thing while he was at Florida Atlantic. Is it possible Travis Hunter follows Sanders to continue his tutelage under the Hall of Fame corner back? Now, add to it that playing for Sanders means transferring to a power five program with more exposure, more money and a better path for the dreams college athletes have.

Even if Sanders isn't long for Colorado, or doesn't succeed to similar levels at Jackson State, this is the right move for Colorado. This program needs life and Sanders is the right kind of coach to bring juice to a program with only three 6+ win seasons in the last 20 years. He will dramatically raise the floor of a program that is drowning in the basement of the PAC12.