Mike Sanford was kibitzing at Brady Russell’s NFL Draft party when it hit him like Ralphie at full tilt. He couldn’t let CU go. Not Buffs players, anyway.
“That (party) kind of reconnected me as to why you do this in the first place,” CU’s former offensive coordinator and 2022 interim head coach told me by phone last week. “I was at the party and there were a bunch of former CU players, and I was like, ‘I love these kids.’”
Sanford had punted Twitter for a time, understandably, to decompress and clear the decks after Deion Sanders and the new Buffs football regime cut him loose this past December. But seeing the kids again and hearing how many of them felt left in the lurch by the historic roster switcheroo at CU got him back on the platform, tweeting the night of May 1 that:
“If any coaches want unbiased info on any of the CU players in the (transfer) portal, shoot me a DM with your number and I’ll call you. I’ll shoot you straight… I have no dog in the fight!”
His phone blew up. In the week after that tweet, Sanford said, at least 50 schools called him asking about former CU players, programs of all shapes and sizes. Bluebloods. JUCOs. Lower divisions.
“I will be one of the first to say I was a 1-11 offensive coordinator and interim coach. I will own that,” said the former Buffs coach, who’d been hired by former Buffs coach Karl Dorrell as offensive coordinator in December 2021 and served seven games as CU’s interim head coach last fall.
“But I will say not every single kid on that team or every coach on that staff was a 1-11 person.
“Just based on conversations I’ve had with bluebloods, there were some that were viewed that way. A lot of them were having to play in games as freshmen or true sophomores in some of those instances … some of them were growing up as players as the year went on.”
Sanford takes ownership for the Buffs’ dumpster fire last fall, a descent hastened by the transfers of star players, injuries and youth. He also still feels an obligation to kids and coaches who continue to wear scarlet letters, some unfairly, over arguably the worst season in modern Buffs football history.
Parents have called by the dozens. Angry. Confused. Some felt wronged by the school. Others felt betrayed by athletic director Rick George, who reportedly told 2022-23 commitments that their scholarships would be honored, only to have Coach Prime walk in with his now-famous “Louis Vuitton” speech and clean house.
“I almost feel like they didn’t know where to go, because this is new around college football, as we all know, and it’s the reality,” Sanford offered. “But they also don’t know exactly who to go to for advice. ‘How far should I let my son drop?’
“My motivation, really, for all this was that I really care about these people … I wanted to just help bridge that gap and basically (counsel) players to what seems like a good fit.”
The Buffs saw 47 players hit the transfer portal from Christmas 2022 through May 10, per 247Sports.com’s database, although one entry, defensive end Chance Main, recently decided to rejoin the roster.
For a guy who turned 41 this past February, Sanford’s seen some stuff. His father, Mike, who played quarterback at USC, was a coaching lifer, from the Pac-12 to the NFL to preps and all points in between.
The younger Sanford, a signal-caller at Boise State, grew up wanting to follow Dad’s path. He apprenticed under Jim Harbaugh, David Shaw, Brian Kelly, Bryan Harsin and Gary Andersen. He became the youngest FBS head coach in the country at age 34 when Western Kentucky hired him away from Notre Dame in December 2016.
Sanford wound up going 9-16 with the Hilltoppers, 1-6 as an interim at CU. Having been let go from two Power 5 jobs in a span of 36 months (Minnesota and the Buffs), he’s catching up on dad time and catching his breath.
“There were some really good players on that (CU) roster, really young players, developing players, growing up in real time, probably getting playing time before they normally would,” said Sanford, who was due to make $700,000 from CU this year and $750,000 in 2024.
“But I also completely understand the business nowadays, which is very different. Everybody is evaluated (on the idea of) winning right now, this year. That’s the way it goes. You have to win right now … (I was reared) to think about winning in two-three-four years rather than winning this year, based on how I was raised in college coaching. I think I’m more accustomed to that three-four-five-year cycle (of program-building).”
The Prime Method aims to cut that cycle by roughly half, to flip the script by Year 1 or 2, and CU’s gone all-in. Sanders is running his Jackson State playbook in Boulder almost to the letter — get as many of his guys in and as many of the old guys out as quickly as he can (check), promise the moon (check) and land some stars (double check) along the way.
The university did an administrative 180 from the very top, even vowing to loosen its academic requirements for transfers, a bane of football alums and a major gripe of Buffs fans for decades, while backing Coach Prime at almost every turn. So far.
Sanford attended the standing-room-only pep rally that was Sanders’ introductory news conference last December, swept up by the hope and the hype. He met with Coach Prime that day to pore over personnel, offering up “candid information,” he recalled, “about the guys on the roster.
“The thing that’s crazy is, coaching at CU was actually a dream of mine, growing up in the ‘90s. So I have a real affinity with the university. So I keep tabs on what’s going on. But obviously, (I’m) following it very differently now as I figure out the next spot for myself.”
As dad time continues, Sanford continues to take calls, insisting he’s got no dog in the fight. But like the rest of us, he’s curious as all heck to see what kind of fight shows up in that dog.
