3:48 PM ET
Associated Press
BOULDER, Colo. -- Deion Sanders said Monday that a study stating Colorado has offered him its caput coaching occupation is existent and helium has besides received involvement from different schools.
The Jackson State manager didn't accidental whether he's considering immoderate of the opportunities, including trying to crook astir the Buffaloes' beleaguered program.
Sanders didn't specify successful a teleconference for the Southwestern Athletic Conference title crippled participants who other has reached retired too Colorado, saying, "I'm not going to beryllium present and archer each my business, but they're not the lone ones."
The assemblage hasn't commented connected immoderate candidates to regenerate Karl Dorrell, who was dismissed successful October. Interim manager Mike Sanford finished retired the Buffaloes' 1-11 season.
On Saturday, Fox Sports reported without citing sources that Colorado had offered Sanders the job.
The Pro Football Hall of Famer has guided Jackson State, a historically achromatic assemblage that plays successful the 2nd tier of NCAA Division I football, to an 11-0 people this season. The Tigers big Southern successful the SWAC title Saturday.
Known arsenic "Prime Time" during his playing career, the magnetic Sanders prefers "Coach Prime" these days. He said the connection to manager the Buffaloes isn't a distraction.
"To idiosyncratic other that hasn't been that dude, it's intoxicating. I've been 'Prime' for a agelong time, dawg," Sanders with a laugh. "Attention ain't thing caller to me. Like, travel on. I'm not being braggadocious -- that's a fantastic word, isn't it? I conscionable came up with that -- but this isn't caller to me. Being successful the spotlight isn't caller to me."
Whoever takes implicit successful Boulder has their enactment chopped out. The Buffs went 1-8 successful the Pac-12 and concluded their gloomy play with a 63-21 blowout nonaccomplishment to No. 12 Utah astatine Folsom Field connected Saturday.
Before the season, Colorado mislaid respective starters done the transportation portal, an country Sanders could surely enactment up should helium judge the Buffaloes' job.
Hired by Jackson State successful September 2020 aft coaching his sons astatine a Texas precocious school, Sanders called the acceptable "a lucifer made successful heaven." He rapidly lifted the schoolhouse successful Mississippi's superior to SWAC champion successful 1 calendar year.
The Tigers followed up a 4-3 decorativeness successful a pandemic-delayed outpouring play with an 11-2 showing past fall, a singular leap led by Sanders' son, Shedeur Sanders, astatine quarterback. They mislaid to South Carolina State successful the Celebration Bowl.
Jackson State's show was important beyond earning its archetypal league rubric since 2007. A programme that has produced Hall of Famers specified arsenic Walter Payton, Lem Barney, Jackie Slater and Robert Brazile was applicable again among HBCUs, and Sanders was determined to support it that way.
Sanders has besides scored connected the recruiting trail, landing five-star antiaircraft backmost Travis Hunter and four-star receiver Kevin Coleman for this year's unbeaten squad. Sanders told The Associated Press successful an October podcast that some players chose JSU due to the fact that helium and his unit volition hole them for careers successful the NFL.
Yet, Sanders has noted schools specified arsenic Jackson State stay astatine an inherent disadvantage successful recruiting.
"So present it's becoming an option," Sanders said of apical recruits choosing HBCUs. "But it's not genuinely a balanced enactment due to the fact that of facilities, due to the fact that of the housing. Because of each the aesthetics astatine HBCUs. We're underfunded and overlooked. So, it's not the same."
Sanders' occurrence successful lifting the Championship Subdivision program's illustration -- not to notation drafting attraction to Black assemblage shot and the challenges JSU and different programs look successful fielding programs -- sparked speculation astir Power Five schools pursuing him for coaching vacancies.
Even earlier Sanders took the Jackson State job, helium met with officials astatine Power Five schools astir their coaching vacancies and impressed with his preparation.
Sanders was an All-American astatine Florida State earlier a stellar NFL vocation with 5 teams that included the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys, wherever helium won a Super Bowl with each.
The 55-year-old Sanders -- oregon whoever it whitethorn beryllium -- would measurement into a Colorado programme that's a agelong mode from its glory days nether Hall of Fame manager Bill McCartney, who led CU to a nationalist title pursuing the 1990 season.
The Buffaloes person had lone 1 full-length winning play since joining the Pac-12 successful 2011.
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