Michael Irvin delivers impassioned message to Coach Prime, Colorado

Deion Sanders often has leaned into his large bank of high-profile friends and contacts since he became a head coach at the collegiate level, first at Jackson State and now at the University of Colorado.

Coach Prime’s practices have become must-see affairs. They’ve also afforded Sanders an opportunity to expose his players to messages from some of football’s greatest players.

Case in point: Michael Irvin, the former Miami Hurricanes and Dallas Cowboys great who has been enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, imparted quite the passionate message to the Colorado Buffaloes last week in advance of their season-opening game at TCU.

The Buffaloes scored one of the day's biggest upsets and arguably one of college football's more notable surprise wins in recent history with their 45-42 triumph over the Horned Frogs.

Not that Colorado players were surprised. They seemingly had taken to heart Irvin's message. 

As he urged teammates to help one another, Irvin shared that he worked to try to help Deion Sanders prepare when the Cowboys had a high-stakes game upcoming – particularly, as Irvin noted, against the San Francisco 49ers.

“When I got ready to play or we got ready, the best way I could make sure I beat Jerry Rice was to get Deion ready,” Irvin said. “I said, ‘Let’s go, Prime. We gotta work. I’ve got to get you ready.’

“That’s what you guys should be doing: getting each other ready.”

Irvin told the players that theirs is a different world from Corporate America that requires a different response.

“You can’t wait to jump on other people, can’t wait. Our game is different,” Irvin said. “Most of the people you know who get to the top of their game or the top of their field, punching on a computer, they don’t know what we know. So if you’re just punching a computer or doing something, all you’ve got to do is sharpen your skill. But in our game, it’s a man-to-man, hand-to-hand combat.

“I have to sharpen my skill but at the same time I have to deepen my will. I’m not punching a keyboard without any emotion. I’m going up against another grown man that wants to feed his family, that wants to make a great life for himself. I’ve got to tell him, I want this more than you. That’s what you gotta tell them every time you line up across from them. I’ve gotta want this more. You can work your skill all day; if you don’t deepen your will, you’re going to get your ass kicked.”

Irvin also told the Buffaloes’ players that they would relish in the “I-told-you-so” moment of beating TCU.

“You have to tighten your skill and then your will. You deepen your will by putting work in together out here,” Irvin said. “And when you get to gameday, you say, ‘Man, we worked too hard to lose this game. We are not losing this game.’

“Not a lot of people are going to give a chance. There’s not a lot better than slapping people in the face with, ‘Dammit, I told you so!’ You measured me and you didn’t know what was in here (in the heart).’”

Finally, Irvin encouraged Coach Prime’s first Colorado team to be competitors, to dig deep and have the desire – the refusal – to “tap out” in critical moments.

“We’re in a new time where guys don’t even want to work,” Irvin said. “I see receivers now leaving the damn field on third down. Tapping out. I don’t wanna play with a dude if I see you tapping your damn head on third down. Are you joking? Are you serious? …

“You’ve got to want those moments. The moments that most would run from, you run to if you want greatness.”