Deion Sanders has done it again.
His Colorado Buffaloes are 8–2 with a chance of making the College Football Playoff just two years after the program won just one game.
Now the questions are starting to come about Sanders’s future, just as they did when he turned Jackson State from a struggling program into a formidable FCS program.
But could it be the NFL this time instead of another college job?
Big NFL names are already pushing for it.
Michael Irvin strongly implied in a Tuesday appearance on Colin Cowherd’s show that Sanders would be interested in coaching his son Shedeur in Dallas.
“I believe 100%, and I can tell you, good sources have told me that,” Irvin said. “Great sources have told me that. That’s all I can say like that without violating anything else.”
Shedeur Sanders is considered a top quarterback prospect in this draft, although this QB class is not seen as historically strong.
The Hall of Fame wideout, who won Super Bowl XXX with Sanders in Dallas, said last week at a promotion for the Jake Paul–Mike Tyson fight he plans to pitch Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on hiring Sanders. Jones was alongside Irvin when he made the comment and changed the subject without responding to it.
“Everybody loves Mike [Tyson], but everybody loves and respects Jake [Paul] also for what he’s done here. To have an ability to not go the normal route and still end up right here,” Irvin said. “You give him respect. I give him respect like I give my great guy Deion Sanders, who didn’t go the normal route. Who I’m gonna be in Jerry’s ear about later. That’s just something else we’re talking about.”
Irvin became the second former Cowboys wideout in as many days to vouch for Sanders. During the team’s 34–10 blowout loss to Houston on Monday night, Dez Bryant tweeted, “If I’m the Cowboys, I’d fire everyone after this season. There’s young, hungry talent in the upcoming draft. Also, I’d consider @DeionSanders as the next head coach.”
In September, the Cowboys just signed quarterback Dak Prescott to a four-year extension worth $240 million, making America’s Team an unlikely candidate to draft a quarterback in April. (Prescott has since torn his hamstring and the Cowboys have crashed to a 3–7 record.) But could other teams try to pull off the package deal?
Sanders signed a five-year contract worth nearly $30 million with Colorado when he was hired in late 2022. Should he leave before the end of his second season, he would owe CU $10 million, according to his contract. If he left before the end of his third year, that figure falls to $8 million. That figure can be chump change to the right NFL team interested in making a bold hire. The Giants are about to eat way more money on Daniel Jones, for example.
On Tuesday, Sanders downplayed any idea of his leaving Boulder in the near future.
“I’m happy where I am, man,” Sanders said. “I’ve got a kickstand down. You know what a kickstand is? … That means I’m resting. I’m good, I’m happy, I’m excited. I’m enthusiastic about where I am. I love it here, truly do.”
But that doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about the NFL at all. Sanders recently said on FS1’s Speak he would privately intervene if the “wrong organization” tried to draft his son. When asked what kind of team he’d like to draft Shedeur, Sanders said, “Somebody that can handle the quarterback that he is. … Someone that has had success in the past handling quarterbacks or someone in an organization [who] understands what they’re doing, not just throwing you out there amongst the world [and] you don’t have the support in the infrastructure of the team.”
Surely, then, having Deion as head coach would qualify as support in the infrastructure. The Jets and Giants will almost certainly be looking for a quarterback this offseason, and the Giants may join the Jets and Saints in hunting for a new coach. The Browns and Jaguars could be looking to fill one or both roles. ESPN’s Adam Schefter said this week that as many as seven more coaching jobs could open in addition to the Jets and Saints vacancies, and it follows that some of those teams may be interested in rebooting with a rookie quarterback.
Sanders has also been linked to Florida State, his alma mater, but Mike Norvell has a hefty buyout and the department might not be interested in the show Sanders comes with.
He has his own camera crews follow him around, can be combative with the media, and wields an enormous amount of power and influence in an athletic department for a coach with less than two years of Power 4 experience. Would an NFL team sign up for all of that?
In addition to his son, Sanders will also lose Heisman hopeful Travis Hunter to the NFL draft in what could be a rebuilding year for Colorado in 2025. But Indiana this year and the Sanders experience—he brought in 53 transfers last year—have shown that teams can be built through the portal. Sanders, indeed, has recruited only a small number of high school players. But the Buffs are in the mix for Julian Lewis, a consensus top-five quarterback recruit who decommitted from USC on Sunday.
“It says a lot about what we plan on being and the stability that we’re going to be here for a while,” Sanders said. “We ain’t going nowhere. We’re about to get comfortable.”
