NFL
By: Brock Vierra
When Deion Sanders became the head coach of the Jackson State University football program, he ruffled some feathers with his flamboyant flair and ability to out-recruit every D1 coach in the country. Coach Sanders or Coach Prime has always been a showman so it’s no surprise that he translated his style into his coaching career. The ruffled feathers come from coaches who are jealous of Sanders as they have failed to recruit to the level that Sanders has been able to in his short time as a collegiate coach.
This week was no different when Oklahoma HC Brent Venables took a cheap potshot at Sanders and his style when he said…“I was unlike Deion, I gave guys 12 months of grace to figure it out. Here’s the three: Go to class, live right off the field and when you show up here you show up with respect and appreciation for your opportunity. And if you go 0-for-3 for 12 months, you need a fresh start. So we helped 21 guys, give or take, find a fresh start. We’re another year in establishing our standards and our culture and our values. That matters. A year ago, I challenged the guys. I wasn’t like Deion that gave guys a bunch of pink slips.”
Now Sanders who enters his first year as a FBS head coach with the Colorado Buffaloes has come in and made some noise. Using the transfer portal, Sanders acquired a tremendous amount of players which he has labeled as “Gucci.” Setting the standard to get Colorado back to winning ways, Sanders brought in over 40 transfers including 10 from Jackson State. Coming with him are his sons Shilo and Shedeur Sanders, the top prospect of the 2021 HS recruiting class in Travis Hunter along with 25 players from Power 5 schools.
Now while Venables completely ignored the fact he coached the Sooners to their first losing season in about 25 years, despite coming into his first year with talent across the board, what I didn’t understand is his obsessive need to bring up Deion Sanders. Venables’ mentioned Sanders several times during the Big 12 Media Week when in reality, he didn’t need to mention it at all. All Venables had to say is that he wanted to give his players grace, it happened and now he’s ready to proceed into his second year with a roster he feels comfortable with. A solid statement that clearly outlines his strategies. Instead, it felt more like a justification for Venables having an awful 2021 season, parading himself as a champion of the players while villainizing Sanders for his approach to roster management.
What bothered me is that he went after Sanders who took over the worst program in college football instead of the many coaches who performed massive roster turnovers, especially Oklahoma’s most hated man in Lincoln Riley who had 27 outgoing transfers while bringing in over 23 players before he coached a single game. Had Venables taken a shot at Riley, one he would’ve had a leg to stand on when you consider the amount of talent that USC had, OU might’ve built him a statue just for the fun of it.
But what is this really about? Why Coach Sanders? Well if you remember his original quote, Venables doesn’t refer to Sanders as Coach Deion or Coach Sanders. The word coach doesn’t appear nor does Venables reference Sanders’ last name.
I believe Venables, like a lot of coaches throughout the country, doesn’t see or respect Deion Sanders as a head coach. I believe some view him as someone who got the job based off of name alone instead of his resume.
I think that if this is true, it’s rich considering Venables who despite being considered as one of the top defensive minds in all of college football, needed a very specific set of circumstances to occur for someone to finally give him a shot. What I think is hypocritical is that both Sanders and Venables have similar backgrounds. Both are defensive-minded, both have been overlooked throughout their coaching careers and both have had the privilege of coaching their sons at the collegiate level.
As humans all we ever want is an opportunity, just one shot to achieve a dream so it bothers me for someone to be speaking about how another man handles his shot while Venables is currently blowing his.
Yet that isn’t the issue. What Sanders represents to a far cry from the norm and it’s making coaches nervous. In college football, there was a certain process that a coach had to undertake in order to get his opportunity. Deion skipped the line and some find that unfair.
However qualifications trump process and as we can clearly see, Sanders is one of the best recruiters in the country, something that is a staple of being a great head coach. A place like Colorado needs a coach like Sanders, a coach who can both recruit and keep high-level talent. With the Buffalos losing both Christian Gonzalez and Brenden Rice to conference rivals in 2022, Sanders checks the boxes.
All I’m saying is that before you take potshots at someone else’s style, take a look at your own first. Maybe Venables way is the right way but until either man can start stacking wins, neither way can be labeled as right. For Venables, it also doesn’t look good to say that he took the “high ground” when he entered 2022 with the No. 9th ranked team in the country and ended it with 7 losses.
All I know is that time is of the essence and there’s no benefit to losing. Venables had a team that won 11 games in 2021 and not only did Venables lose 7 games in 2022, his offense looked horrible, he lost to hated rival Texas 49-0 and he pushed out OU’s most loyal son in Cale Gundy. Now I don’t blame Venables for how he addressed the Gundy incident but it rubbed some people the wrong way and it should be noted, Gundy never suffered a losing season as a coordinator.
Perhaps if he invested in the portal more, maybe OU could’ve made the college football playoff in 2022. Maybe his excuse of letting players have 12 months to “find themselves” is just a cop-out for his on-field failures.
Now he’s in his head coaching infancy and has time to improve but I’d suggest he should concern himself more with Oklahoma’s impending move to the SEC instead of what another coach is doing across the country for a program you’ll maybe meet once in the near future. In the meantime, it’s a weak move and everyone knows it.
