'Y’all thought it was the end': Deion Sanders has lost touch with football reality at Colorado (Part 3)
· Yahoo Sports
Editor's note: This is part three of a series entitled "Deion Sanders has lost touch with football reality at Colorado."
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Check out part one and part two.
“We were 2-1 and y’all thought it was the end of the world”
This one might be difficult. There is a conventional way of doing things that gives longtime football spectators a feeling of optimism because they’ve seen it work before. Build trenches out, control the line of scrimmage, run the ball and stop the run. After the Georgia Tech game, people thought that was what they were seeing. Colorado dominated a team many thought they wouldn’t. So when that was followed up by a somewhat sloppy win against a Big Sky opponent, they questioned that. When you lose to a Big Ten team by doing ‘not those things’, it’s going to feel like Georgia Tech was an anomaly. Thus, the panic he referred to.
“I’m not going to say lack of discipline"
This led to more deflecting. Why would the Colorado media go in on Northwestern’s penalties when they won the game? Winning solves a lot. Winning removes the need to ask about losing factors, because they didn’t lose. Colorado had six penalties for 60 yards vs Georgia Tech and it never came up. There are things this team does no one is challenging. They fight, there is consistent effort, they battle. Unlike last season, players are not shrinking at the moment. Those factors are good, but don’t absolve the discipline question when they have 30 penalties in three weeks.
Coach or a promoter; depends on which guy is talking
Let’s not focus on just the peculiar answers. As mentioned, there were positives. Sanders doesn’t see silver linings, but we can. Sanders was much more conversational after the Northwestern loss. Something he seems resistant to before the season and during stretches of success.
His direct appeal to either the media or fans at large to, “not give up on Juju” is one of those times. A direct appeal is not typical for Coach Prime. He did also give us the heads-up on the Lewis process months ago when he said, “Juju’s coming’ round the mountain.” Which literally meant he’s not there yet. He’s not a finished product and is learning on the job. A sentiment that can be appreciated from a human perspective. So far, there seems to be no pushback on the don’t give up on JuJu line.
He is allowing the media to ask their full question. He is not talking about the premise of the question. He is not challenging the premise of the question. He came into a press conference following a bad loss without his armor on and answered questions as the man in charge.
Sanders seems to think he needs to be Coach Prime all the time. While that logic is understandable, he should let people see “Deion Sanders” more often. In this press conference, Coach Prime spun the narrative while Deion Sanders gave coaching answers. While there might be certain concepts or wordings that seem to draw more questions, when he lets Deion Sanders out, the response is almost always a better one.
When only Coach Prime speaks, it begins to feel like being sold something. When Sanders speaks, he just sounds like a football coach. He shouldn’t be hesitant to let Sanders do the talking.
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