Shedeur Sanders, Shilo Sanders and Deion Sanders are not concerned about the mass exodus of Colorado football players to the transfer portal in recent days. They set the record straight.
In doing so, the trio made it clear that those who left are the problem— not the other way around.
19 athletes have decided to leave Boulder in the past three weeks. That list includes former five-star, top-15 recruit Cormani McClain, who had a difficult freshman season with the Buffaloes. It also includes running back Alton McCaskill, once a budding superstar at Houston, whose father called out the Colorado coaching staff for favoritism.
Coach Prime is not concerned with the optics or the reality of so many departures.
We’re good. I trust the recruiting team. I trust our coaches, and please have some faith me. We good. We alright. We alright […]
I think we got some [starting-caliber players] coming in from visits pretty soon, maybe even this weekend, but we can attract those types of players. I don’t think we’re losing those type of players, and if we do, we’re good. We’re good. We’re making a big deal out of nothing.
— Deion Sanders
The second-year head coach continuously reiterated that the players who left are not worth of a starting job. He says that they are mostly backups who wouldn’t be on the field in a significant capacity.
When pressed by a group of local reporters about the loss of talent, Sanders fired right back. However, in doing so, he neglected to embrace the reality that media is not allowed to watch practice— which only represents the fallacy in his thoughts and desire to deflect.
I wish you guys would do a little more homework when you start talking about the portal and understand what we are losing. What are we losing? Who are we losing? Potential starters, where? You haven’t been watching practice, have you?
— Deion Sanders
The head coach’s sons echoed a similar sentiment.
Shilo explained that the players who left because of a lack of playing time — referring most poignantly to McCaskill — were not going to play because they are not good enough to play. In his eyes, it’s that simple.
If you’re good, you’re going to play. A lot of people talk about favoritism stuff but I’ve seen that at other schools that actually might be like that. I promise you, if you’re good you’re going to play. You’ll have more of an opportunity here to legit actually display your skills.
— Shilo Sanders
Shedeur went even one step further.
If you’re not playing here, that just means you’re doing something wrong. If you’re not playing here that means you’re doing something- not listening to the coaches or something.
— Shedeur Sanders
His older brother expanded further on that train of thought.
Not everybody sees behind the scenes in practice and we know who these guys really are. They might get on Instagram or Twitter or say something but it’s not like you’re even doing anything, bro. Y’all don’t know what is going on at practice every day because you kist see highlight players here and there but we practice every day almost. We know who is who and if somebody was done wrong we would know that.
— Shilo Sanders
At the end of the day, Deion Sanders, Shilo Sanders and Shedeur Sanders are right. We, as people outside of the program, don’t know the real dynamics of the team. We don’t know whether the players that are leaving were going to have a legitimate opportunity to get on the field or if they had/have attitude issues.
Still, though, we know that losing 19 players (and counting) to the portal is a legitimate concern. Especially for a team that was truly abysmal down the stretch last season.