If there really was any heat under the seat of Colorado Buffaloes coach Deion Sanders, it was cooled significantly by the Buffs’ overtime win over Kansas State at Folsom Field last Saturday. The five-game losing streak is over, and the Buffs can turn their attention to trying to end this season on a better note than they did a year ago. That, and his massive $26 million contract buy-out, will probably keep Deion in Boulder for at least another season. In all likelihood, Sanders will be the one who decides when and how his days under the Flatirons will come to an end. (Yes, he has that much pull.)
When that day arrives, it’s also possible – if not likely – that Deion will have a hand in choosing his successor.
Say what you want about Deion’s coaching acumen. Compared with others in the profession (especially those at his advanced age) he’s still a novice, this being just his eighth season wearing a headset after having never served as an assistant. And while he boasted when he was first hired by CU that “I’m going to win. But not only win, but dominate,” during his famous 2023 “60 Minutes” interview, he also added, “That’s what I do. That’s who I am.” It hasn’t worked out that way. His record after beating K-State sits at 19-26. He’ll likely have lost a few more by the time his fourth season comes to an end. Not great.
However, there’s one thing that isn’t often mentioned, and it may end up being his actual football coaching legacy. Sanders is already growing and nurturing his own coaching tree – and while he’s had several white assistants, like former NFL coach Pat Shurmur, for example, his mission has clearly been, and continues to be, advancing the cause of minority football coaches.
His current CU staff features coordinators Brennan Marion (offense) and Chris Marve (defense.) Both are seen as future head coach candidates (Marion, who has already been a head coach at Sacramento State, is Deion’s possible successor at CU.) Former NFL veteran Vonn Bell is in his first season as a coach and is tutoring CU’s safeties. Dante Carter began as a graduate assistant and now coaches CU’s safeties. Rashad Davis played for Deion at Jackson State before making the transition to coaching.
In all, 11 members of CU’s 14 person coaching staff are minorities, each looking to move up the coaching ladder with Sanders’ help.
This all started 15 or so years ago, when Deion first wanted to be a college coach – he said he could not even get a position-coaching gig – so he took a job at HBCU Jackson State (FCS level) and won. He certainly had a good amount of cachet packed in his Louis Vuitton luggage when he arrived in Boulder in December of 2022. One of his first moves was to hire Sean Lewis away from MAC school Kent State to be his offensive coordinator. Lewis didn’t click with quarterback Shedeur Sanders, and left at the end of the 2023 season to become the head man at San Diego State. Technically, he’d be the first branch on the tree (even though he’d been a head coach before.) More recently, Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Marshall Faulk served for a season as the Buffs’ running backs coach before he got the head job at HBCU program Southern University. Health issues aside, Faulk’s team has a chance at posting a winning season in his first year on the sidelines.
It’s likely that other members of Sanders’ four coaching staffs will get a chance to be head coaches in the future. And if that’s really part of the plan, that would actually be a pretty impressive and commendable legacy.
Deion has also had a tendency in the past to give jobs to underqualified guys, like Warren Sapp and others, before those ran their course. Today, however, his staff has more legitimate college football coaches on it, many of whom have dreams of getting where Deion has gotten – into a head coach’s chair. If they start young and gain more experience while they work their way up the ladder, they may end up finding more success than their mentor.
Strike 2: Is CU’s Deion Sanders growing his own coaching tree? Mile High Sports.
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