Colorado football: What can we expect from the Deion Sanders era?

2. Why the Buffaloes?

The Buffaloes have a proud football past. Colorado won the 1990 National Championship and was one of the elite teams in college football during the 1990s. However, a changing football landscape and moving to the Pac-12 were factors in the Buffaloes’ struggles over the last two decades. Why would Coach Prime choose a program so down on its luck?

Jackson State was in a similar situation when Prime took over. The Tigers were 18-40 the five seasons before Sanders arrived, and its last SWAC title was in 2007. Jackson State has gone 23-2 over the previous two seasons with two SWAC titles. Prime has done that with institutional shortcomings with coaching at an FCS program and an HBCU.

Coach Prime told his players, “in coaching; you get elevated or terminated.” Colorado is an upgrade over Jackson State by far. The Buffaloes’ football program is down, but it does not have the built-in issues that Jackson State has.

Colorado completed a 177-million-dollar overhaul of its athletic facilities in 2016, which does not include the 156-million-dollar football-only facility completed in 2019. Coach Prime has more resources to recruit players and pay his assistants more money. The pool was 3.5 million dollars in February; it will be interesting to see if that number increased with Prime.