Deion Sanders’ callous, rule-abiding eradication of the Colorado football roster is a sign of things to come

Go ahead and question Deion Sanders. From a height of 35,000 feet high above the Flatirons, Coach Prime’s massive reversal of the Colorado roster looks callous and reckless and wrong.

Your feelings are valid. Sanders’ methods are questionable. They can also be brilliant. We will see. Both can be true.

However, that is not the discussion. The player freedom that has been established – which is at the heart of this problem – is not going away. It’s all about how it’s implemented.

Coaches can ‘cut’ players. Coaches can also be rude, cold-blooded and rude.

“Those of you that we don’t run away from, we’re going to try and get you to stop,” Sanders told his new players upon his arrival in December.

It certainly seems callous, as 28 more Buffalos have entered the portal since the close of Saturday’s televised, well-attended and much-watched spring game. Only about a dozen scholarship players remain from Colorado’s roster for 2022; the scholarship limit for football is 85.

That’s either a lot of room for growth or a crater so deep it was last seen on the moon.

No doubt it’s a lot of players going off in a short amount of time, especially in an NCAA that should still be a tiny bit of education.

And while it is extremely difficult for the NCAA to establish morality in legislation, who would have thought that legislation would be necessary to prevent a coach from flipping an entire roster. What about common decency?

Get used to it, because Coach Prime doesn’t do this alone. What’s happening this week is just a variation on a theme. While not nearly as drastic, Lincoln Riley flipped USC’s roster in a similar fashion just one offseason ago.

The transfer portal is only 4 years old. The one-time transfer exemption will become two in August.

Coach Prime’s methods may only be the opening act.

The NCAA is not backing down on the portal or the waiver for the same reason the rules changed in the first place. The risk of legal liability is too great. The NCAA probably would have been sued if it continued to restrict players with the contractual nature of the year-in-residence statutes.

It will absolutely be sued if it tries to roll back the new, existing freedoms.

On your way to the House of Outrage, consider a 12-year-old NCAA statute that essentially allows freshman coaches to “cut” players as long as the athletes are allowed to keep their scholarship.

That’s exactly what happened to the Trojans last year when Riley turned around much of his roster. Several players stayed despite their layoffs, choosing to give up football and continue a free education – because it’s USC.

Quick question for the Colorado administration: Given CU’s similarly excellent academic record, how many Buffalos take advantage of that same rule after being notified that their services were no longer needed?

The question that remains is How Sanders changes his lineup. When Prime was reminded on the “Pat McAfee Show” this week that 41 Colorado players had entered the portal (at the time), Prime replied, “Is that all?”

Get out of the way now. Coach Prime keeps saying he has a plan.

“We already know what’s coming in,” Sanders told McAfee. “You just don’t know what we’re getting. We already know what we have on the way, honey. They’re probably at the airport now.’

An improvement from 1-11 – the worst record in Colorado history last season – to even 5-7 would be almost a miracle at this point. Even though it was through the lens of television, the Buffs were watching small in their spring play. Special teams was a disaster. The schedule is already packed with TCU, USC, UCLA, Oregon State and Utah.

The only winner at the moment? Maybe just Sanders himself. This seems more like a career detour than a calling. He could get bored in two years and jump to another program or end up in a studio somewhere.

In that sense, not much has changed. Deion Sanders the brand is bigger than whatever Coach Prime is or will become. If the Colorado government didn’t know that when it signed up for this joyride, shame on you.

Few other coaches get away with this practice, and how many other administrations would even allow it?

From now on, Sanders is framed as a crazy genius manipulator with a daring plan. Whether it works is a whole other discussion.

However, the rules say that he is absolutely allowed to try.

Another way of putting it: don’t hate the player; hate the game.