Can you imagine the first time Bubba Booster suggests to Deion Sanders who oughta play tailback?
Or asks Coach Prime to entertain his foursome on some random Thursday at the PGA Resort in Frisco? Or wants Sanders to fly out and meet his momma?
“Deion, we got a, urmmm, business agreement with this here young man, so …”
Click.
“Prime? Prime. Bubba here. We musta got cut off, ‘cuz …”
Click.
Nobody — not Bubba, not Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork, not John Ross Ewing — tells Deion Sanders what to do.
Well, unless they’re directing the commercial he happens to be shooting that day. Or they’re Mike Zimmer.
“NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) is not a problem with me,” Sanders told our old pal Joel Klatt of Fox Sports a few months back. “Collectives are.”
Go on, Coach Prime. Preach. Stephen A. can’t hear you over the sound of his own bull junk.
“Collectives, you could be Tom, Dick, Harry and Larry and you just put a bag together, boosters or whatever, whoever does it, and try to solicit these kids to come to your university,” the Buffs coach continued. “Who is that helping?”
Whoop!
In Aggieland, Bubba rules. The Gig ‘Em gig is all about that bag.
On Planet Prime, though? Ain’t the money. Not this round.
Don’t get me wrong: Should Texas A&M want to poach Sanders from the Buffs, the Aggies could Uber the man from Louisville to Bryan, Texas, in a gold Brink’s truck stuffed with diamonds. If CU athletic director Rick George couldn’t win a bidding war with Michigan State, he sure as heck isn’t winning one with A&M.
Yet there’s a reason Prime is coaching the Buffs and not, say, Auburn right now, much to Charles Barkley’s chagrin.
It’s about power.
I mean, yeah, and his kids.
But mostly power.
A&M can write Sanders and SMAC, the entertainment company that helps pull the strings, a blank check.
The Buffs gave Deion’s camp a blank canvas.
Open runways. Run of the campus. Ain’t no mountain high enough.
Coach Prime was — and is — a package deal. Sanders came with a QB1 (son Shedeur), a five-star cornerback/wideout (Travis Hunter) and a senior safety (son Shilo). They all start on Day 1, capisce?
He came with a daughter who plays college basketball. He came with his own personal media team that needed clearance to be wherever it wanted, whenever it wanted, documenting the lot for Amazon Prime.
Oh, and he needed a green light to overhaul the entire roster before Pac-12 Media Day in July.
Done. Done. Done. And done.
Sanders needs control. The Buffs needed … well, everything. They were that desperate. And weren’t shy about it, either. This was the last Hail Mary for George, who’s nearing retirement, to get his football program back onto the big stage.
Financially, from season sellouts, to donations, to merchandise, to magazine covers, it’s been a grand slam. Competitively, it’s been, to put it kindly, a work in progress. Deion wanted TCU to prove a point. He knew the natives wanted Nebraska and CSU. Anything after that was house money.
The Buffs have an elite QB, elite speed, and a foundation that needs some filling out — OK, a lot of filling out — in the trenches. But if any of your SEC friends try to tell you Shedeur and Hunter can follow Prime immediately thanks to a “coaching-change” exception, that’s poppycock.
The NCAA sent a memo this past March to schools informing them that they’d be clamping down on immediate eligibility for second-time transfers. Among the scenarios the organization explicitly said it would deny was a “coaching change.”
Shilo has one more year of eligibility. Hunter can’t jump to the NFL, at the earliest, until after his 2024 season. Shedeur figures to wait it out with both, health-permitting, and lead the Buffs for one more ride. Basically, Shedeur and Hunter, cream of The Chosen Ones, have more or less shot their shot, unless they want to sit out a year.
Which they don’t.
“I’m here,” Coach Prime said earlier this week. “My mother’s here, my sister’s here. My dog is here. (All) of my sons are here. My other daughter comes (here) during every home game.
“We’re here. I get mail here, claim taxes here, pay taxes here. I’m sorry, I’m here. I don’t hear (rumors). I don’t hear that. Maybe our recruiting staff hears it, but I don’t hear it. I’m too honest … with parents and I’m gonna tell (them) the truth.”
Coach Prime made a point a few weeks ago to remind me — unprompted — that he was a “Pro Bowl, Hall-of-Fame” dad. No gold-jacket pops is gonna bolt for College Station and leave his kids behind. Not for all the Bubbas in Brownsville.
Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.
