Strike 3: When Deion Sanders arrived at the foot of the Flatirons three years ago now, he was, as he put it, bringing some “Louis” luggage with him. The prevailing thought was that Sanders was using fat checkbooks to lure big time players like Travis Hunter to join him for his first Power 4 gig. And at the time, there was very likely a good deal of truth to that.
To make room for his Louis Vuitton baggage, Sanders kicked upwards of 70 then-current CU players to the curb almost immediately – before meeting or interacting with the vast majority of them. They were told to “hit the portal.” They were being replaced.
Seems like a lifetime ago. In case you forgot, the Buffs have gone 4-8, 9-4 and 3-9 in the three seasons since going 1-11 the year before Sanders arrived.
The sport of college football has changed immensely since Deion’s splash landing in Boulder, with some college coaches choosing to follow the same sort of roster-building game plan, and others simply trying to avoid losing their best guys every off season.
Sanders and the Buffaloes are now living in the second category. The transfer portal and Deion don’t appear to be besties anymore.
After CU’s season-ending loss to Kansas State, Sanders told the media that he expected to lose some players to the portal, and that he had a pretty good idea who those players would be. He promised that he and his staff would be hard at work, starting immediately, to rebuild and improve the roster.
Still, it’s hard to imagine he knew he was going to lose his best offensive weapons, especially after announcing the hiring of a new, young and innovative offensive coordinator, Brennan Marion. Losing receivers Omarion Miller and Dre’Lon Miller (along with 14 other players as of the weekend before Christmas, including defenders Tawfiq Byard and Alexander McPherson) to the portal is a big blow, and it may take more than CU can offer dollars-wise in order to fill those cleats.
Every program needs to pay players handsomely these days, either via school-wide revenue sharing or by Name, Image and Likeness deals that are supposed to be monitored (and verified as being legit) by the NCAA. The richest of the rich now have payrolls of close to $40 million per season.
Colorado doesn’t have coffers nearly that deep. Published reports say the athletic department is looking at a deficit of $27 million next fiscal year, so it won’t help to ask for any more dollars there. Deion (who is making better than $10 million a year now) needs to find some financial aid from the outside, coming from a market where they’re competing with the Denver Broncos. That’s a tough ask.
It also doesn’t help that the Buffs will be on their third OC in four years when Marion starts coaching them up this spring. There is some level of uncertainty centered around what exactly Marion’s “Go Go” offense will actually look like, since it’s supposed to not only be fast paced, but also run-oriented. Along with money concerns, both Millers probably had questions about what their respective roles were going to be.
All this adds up to a big rebuilding job for Sanders and his coaching staff. National signing day didn’t provide a ton of (high school) help, with Colorado coming in 73rd in the national rankings, right behind Fresno State. Clearly all of Deion’s eggs are right back where they began, in the suddenly not-so-friendly transfer portal.
Strike 3: The CU Buffs are having a rough transfer portal season Mile High Sports.
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