At his spring practice previewing spring ball on Wednesday, Deion Sanders took issue with the recent USA Today report has made zero off-campus recruiting visits -- to high schools or recruits' homes -- during his two winter contact periods at Colorado.
"Let me address something else I need to address. I don't know who did it, I don't know if they're in here. If you are, you can raise your hand like we were in nursery and say, 'Here,'" Sanders said, unprompted. "There was an article that came out that said I don't go on visits.
“My approach is totally different than many coaches,” Sanders said, first asking if the reporter who published the report was in the room. “I’m a business man, as well so I try to save our university money every dern chance I get. For me to go, let’s say I go to Florida and I’m visiting IMG, you don’t think those coaches are going to be a little upset if I don’t come by the school down the street? You don’t think it’s going to be pandemonium, or I’m gonna get naysayed if I don’t go another 45 minutes? Then if I go to that one, why didn’t I come to that school? Now the coach is mad and he’s not gonna let the kid come because I chose that school over that school.
Other coaches, they can do that, but I can’t.”
For what it's worth, Coach Prime did not recruit off campus at Jackson State, either. His 2021 JSU class shattered the record for the highest-rated recruiting class in FCS history.
"I've pretty much done a personal survey," Sanders continued. "I really and truly, in all my heart, believe that parents don't want me at their house. “They want to see how I live. How I get down. See what I got going on. What God has done in my life. I know when I was in college I did not want Bobby Bowden in my house because I knew after 7 o’clock, there was going to be rats and roaches on parade.”
Perhaps it's time for Deion to conduct another personal survey. Colorado signed all of seven high school players in its 2024 class. The group rated highly on a per capita basis, but there simply wasn't much capita to go around.
“I have never heard one guy say I chose this college because this coach came by my crib. Have you?” Sanders said. “I can’t do the things other coaches can do. You know why? I’m Coach Prime. And I didn’t stutter when I said it.”
The idea Deion has convinced himself that recruits' families don't want him coming to their homes is laughable on its face, or that face-to-face, off-campus recruiting has somehow become obsolete is, to pick one of many words, laughable. Other coaches don't do in-home visits because they want to, they do them because they have to.
Let's put it this way: If Colorado wins a conference title without its head coach recruiting off campus, it would be the first title-winning roster built such a way in college football history. And who knows? Maybe Colorado does it and revolutionizes recruiting in the process.
But I doubt it.
Sanders did say Colorado does most of its recruiting through the portal, where in-home visits are much less of a factor, which is undoubtedly true. But that is more of an indictment of CU's high school recruiting than a valid defense. Per 247Sports, in his two classes, Coach Prime has signed 28 high schoolers compared with 76 transfers.
"Going (on the road) is just blowing money for me," Sanders said. "It's blowing a bag. It doesn't make sense."