When it comes to the transfer portal and commitments, Coach Prime is conflicted

OK, let’s see if we’ve got this straight. Deion Sanders, the Colorado football coach who built this year’s team with a herd of transfers from other schools, is complaining about players not living up to their commitments, about players who changed their minds and no longer want to join his team.

After a prize recruit “de-committed” from Colorado recently and elected to “reopen” his recruiting to other schools, Sanders ripped the system. He called for the NCAA to prevent players from breaking their commitments.

“A kid ain’t even faithful to his girlfriend. You think (he’s) gonna be faithful to a school? Come on, man. That’s an emotional thing,” Sanders told The Athletic.

Continuing, he said, “What I wish the NCAA would do, if you’re committed somewhere, you can’t go on any other visits. If you’re committed, that means you’re committed. You can’t go on no other visits. Why would you be committed but you’re still letting kids go on other visits? That means you just playing.”

Wait a minute, isn’t he the guy who …

Yes. The same. Besides bad grammar, Sanders has selective memory and an extreme lack of self-awareness (and let’s hope you already picked up on the irony or hypocrisy or whatever you want to call it).

Sanders had no problem when 53 players chose to break their commitment to other schools to transfer to Colorado last offseason, half of them joining the team after his existing players had endured spring practice. He had no scruples about them leaving their old schools to come to CU. Nor did he have any qualms about encouraging players to “de-commit” or leave CU. With cameras rolling in his first meeting with the team he inherited, he told them, “Those of you we don’t run off, we’re going to try to make you quit.” Nor did he worry about the commitment the school had already made to the players.

He also had no problem “flipping” recruits a year ago, convincing them to break their commitment to another school so they could sign with Colorado. He flipped four-star running back Dylan Edwards from his commitment to Notre Dame. He flipped Cormani McClain from his commitment to Miami. He flipped star receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter from his commitment to Florida State — Sanders’ own alma mater! — during the early signing period in 2021 to play for Sanders at Jackson State in 2022. Then Hunter dumped Jackson State to transfer to Sanders at CU.

Nobody has taken advantage of the transfer portal and “de-commitments” more than Sanders. After arriving at Colorado last winter, he added 86 new players for the 2022 season (70% of the roster). Only 10 scholarship players remained on the team. About 70 players that Sanders had inherited from the 2021 season left the team, fulfilling Sanders’ threat to run them off.

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Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi, whose portal losses include NFL receiver Jordan Addison to USC and quarterback Kedon Slovis to BYU, was among those who criticized Sanders at the time, telling 247Sports, “That’s not the way (the portal) was meant to be. That’s not what the rule intended to be. It was not to overhaul your roster. … (It) looks bad on college football coaches across the country …  those kids that have moms and dads and brothers and sisters and goals in life — I don’t know how many of those 70 that left really wanted to leave or they were kicked in the butt to get out.”

The media jumped on the Sanders Hype Train when his team beat TCU in the season opener. The hype reached fever pitch when the Buffaloes beat Nebraska and Colorado State in the next two games to start the season with a 3-0 record. That propelled them into the national rankings — as high as No. 18 — a fact that looks silly and ridiculous now (and says something about voters and the polling system).

The Buffs lost eight of their next nine games, finishing the season with a 4-8 record and not a single win over a team with a winning record. They finished last in the Pac-12 standings with a 1-8 record.

Since Sanders popped off about changing the “commitment” rules for recruits, he has watched three more recruits “de-commit” from CU.

(Someday, someone needs to explain how a player can “de-commit.” Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Doesn’t that mean he was never committed in the first place. Instead of calling them commitments, let’s call them pinky swears.)

As for Sanders, he has no business complaining about recruits breaking commitments given his track record. He likes the system when it benefits him, but when it doesn’t then he’s crying for change.