Yet Another Coach Is Calling Out Deion Sanders Over His Roster Building Practices

Deion Sanders is not exactly the most popular coach in FBS Division I football.

In fact, he’s far from it.

Now, some of the criticisms of Sanders may well be born from jealously or envy of how quickly Sanders has risen through the coaching ranks.

But some others hold a little more validity.

Among the second variety are criticisms of the way Sanders has chosen to build his roster at Colorado. The first-year head coach saw an unheard of amount of turnover.

The Buffaloes, who went just 1-11 last year, saw a mind-blowing 71 players leave the program since last August. A whopping 47 of those 71 entered after Sanders took over when the spring transfer window opened on April 15.

Many of those players were more or less told to leave the program by Sanders.

This drew the ire of Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi.

“That’s not the way it’s meant to be,” Narduzzi told Brandon Marcello of 247Sports.. “That’s not what the rule intended to be. It was not to overhaul your roster. We’ll see how it works out but that, to me, looks bad on college football coaches across the country. The reflection is on one guy right now but when you look at it overall — those kids that have moms and dads and brothers and sisters and goals in life — I don’t know how many of those 70 that left really wanted to leave or they were kicked in the butt to get out.”

Sanders, as he’s wont to do, fired right back.

But Narduzzi isn’t alone. You can count second-year Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables among those who also believe Sanders went about business the wrong way.

“We’re another year in establishing our standards and our culture and our values. That matters. A year ago, I challenged the guys. I wasn’t like Deion that gave guys a bunch of pink slips,” Venables said at Big 12 media days “I gave guys 12 months of grace to go to class, live right off the field and show up with a great urgency and respect for your opportunity at the University of Oklahoma.

“I gave guys 12 months of grace, I was unlike Deion,” he told the station. “I gave guys 12 months of grace to figure it out. Here’s three: Go to class, live right off the field and when you show up here you show up with respect and appreciation with your opportunity. And if you go 0-for-3 for 12 months, you need a fresh start, so we helped 21 guys, give or take, find a fresh start.”

Something tells us Sanders will have something to say about these comments as well.