Win or lose Colorado's bowl game, Coach Prime gets the last laugh

Deion Sanders has done many things well over a remarkable career: intercept passes, return kicks, score touchdowns, steal bases.

And silence his doubters.

Coach Prime's put another notch in that last column in 2024, leading his Colorado Buffaloes to a 9-3 record and an appearance in the Alamo Bowl on Saturday night. His team was also 7-2 in the reconstituted Big 12, tied for the best conference record but just short of the championship on tiebreakers.

The Buffaloes were 1-11 in the season before Sanders arrived in Boulder, and 4-8 in his first year after losing eight of their final nine games. Even in a college football landscape where quick turnarounds are more common, it's been a rapid ascent.

And if a head coach's job at a top program is at least partly to prepare his best players for professional careers, Coach Prime seems to have nailed that part, too. Quarterback Shedeur Sanders (his son) and wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter are expected to be two of the top picks in April's NFL draft. They may even be the top players taken at their positions. From Colorado! Two years ago, this would only have happened in a fever dream.

None of this even seemed all that likely a year ago. That first season had peaks and valleys befitting of Colorado. The Buffaloes shot out to a 3-0 start including some big wins in nationally televised games, and Neon Deion was a hot coaching prospect, but then the reality of their conference schedule - they were in the Pac-12 in 2023 - set in. Sanders' emphasis on speed and athleticism up and down his roster was undone by the size of Colorado's conference opponents. Simply put, they were shoved around a lot.

Suddenly, the coach being talked about as a candidate for a big SEC posting, or even jumping straight to the NFL, was on the defensive about the job he was doing at Colorado. Recruits transferred elsewhere, and Sanders sniped with critics in the local media.

But he's had the last laugh, or at least the interim laugh. Not only did the Buffaloes stack up nine wins, but Sanders has significantly improved as a recruiter. After his first season in Colorado, his recruiting class ranked just inside the top 100. His 2025 class is currently 38th in one nationwide ranking, highlighted by star quarterback Julian Lewis, who decommitted from USC to join Coach Prime. It's a huge win for Sanders in that it shows his relative lack of experience hasn't prevented him from bringing a top target to a program that's far from a traditional power.

It also makes his future intriguing. A couple of months ago, after it was evident he could win games in a Power 5 conference, there were still questions about whether his time in Colorado would be brief. Once his son (and Hunter) had moved on to the pros, how long would he remain at a school that didn't have any natural recruiting advantages?

His 2025 class suggests he isn't looking for an out soon. And considering one more win would've put Colorado in the Big 12 title game with a shot to book a College Football Playoff spot, that makes some sense. The road from laughingstock to playoff participant may be shorter than anyone imagined.

It's also true, of course, that the modern football landscape doesn't exactly discourage movement. Were an SEC or Big Ten power to land on Sanders as the guy they want to lead their program, he'd still be able to take his prized recruits with him, as he did when Hunter and Shedeur followed him from Jackson State, his first major coaching gig, to Colorado.

Things would get a bit more complicated still if he made the leap to the NFL, where his own celebrity would be much less of an asset in building a roster. But if you owned, say, the Las Vegas Raiders, the idea of trying to engineer a Sanders and Sanders coach/quarterback package would have to be at least a little enticing.

If Sanders stays in Colorado, there will be questions about whether he can make his 2024 success carry into the seasons without his two main stars on the roster. And if he goes, the doubts will be louder still. Coach Prime has a very specific way of doing things: the attitude, the confidence, the brashness, the whole package. He keeps making it work, but there will always be those who wonder if it won't translate to the next level.

A year ago, amid the Colorado swoon, the skeptics looked like they were right.

One imagines Deion Sanders wouldn't mind the chance to prove them wrong, again.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer at theScore