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August 12, 2024

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 BOULDER -- I'm often asked if I believe Deion Sanders will succeed

at Colorado.


My answer: He already has. 


As a CU alum, I'm grateful for that. Sanders rescued the program

from going over a financial cliff.

 

But...


The tone of his presser Friday, held in conjunction with CU's 

fall sports Media Day, was puzzling. I didn't want to write

about it. It was low-hanging fruit. But I decidied to chime in.

 

Sanders' churlishness led to the football stories from or about Media Day

becoming mainly about the media/Prime interaction, rather than about

the Buffs' program. 

 

That was counterproductive.

 

I'll concede that the media reaction might have been overdone, but it also

was inevitable. Sanders' sour attitude was what most heard or heard about,

and it couldn't be ignored. 

 

 The curious aspect of this is that the overall local/state coverage of the Buffs

under Sanders has tended to be, if not adulatory, then at least thorough and

generally fair.

 

 It has not been anything close to relentlessly "negative" or sharply critical, in

part because specialized school-centric, fan-oriented sites are walking a tightrope

between: a) the second-guessing of every unsuccessful third-down play call; and,

b) defending "their" program against all outside criticism. 


There has been some grandstanding involved among the media. But the isolated

sharply critical pieces -- "print" and broadcast -- about the state of the CU program under

Sanders have tended to come from national outlets. Sanders' reaction is part of

creating that cliched "Us Against The World,"  but there are better ways to motivate.

    

One hint of Sanders' approach came early last season, when he barked at ESPN's

highly respected Ed Werder, who as a newspaperman covered Sanders' playing

tenure with the Cowboys, at a time when I also was covering football for

The Sporting News and spent considerable time in Dallas. (I did major profiles of 

Emmitt Smith, Charles Haley, Michael Irvin, and Larry Allen.) Few understood

there was a history and familiarity there between Sanders and Werder.


On Friday in Boulder, Sanders set the tone by essentially mocking an attempt by the

respected (see a pattern here?) Arnie Stapleton of the Associated Press to ask about

the 2024 outlook for a retooled offensive line and passing on a chance to address it

in depth. The O-line was the CU Achilles' in 2023, and it was what most fans would

have asked about if given the chance.

 

CU has added transfer linemen Kahlil Benson, from Indiana; Justin Mayers,

from UTEP; and Tyler Brown, from Jackson State, who wasn't able to play for the

Buffs last season because of NCAA red tape. Plus, Jordan Seaton is a prized freshman

782-star recruit from Washington DC and the IMG Academy. The center most likely will

be sophomore Hank Zilinskas, who played fror my Wheat Ridge High baseball

batterymate, Dave Logan, at Cherry Creek.


On Friday, after Sanders brushed off Stapleton's preamble, media members present

(including me) should have circled back and asked Sanders to expand on that

non-answer about the offensive  line.  We didn't.

 

 Sanders' attitude at the presser was, to quote a former Minnesota high school

football coach, weird.

 

 Regardless of the reason, Sanders' petulant refusal to take a question from (stop me

if this sounds familiar) the respected Eric Christensen, because the reporter/producer

is from Denver's CBS affiliate, was petty and silly. (ADD: Here's another view.)

 

 Sports columnist Sean Keeler of the Denver Post, the newspaper I gave my heart

and soul to for a total of 30 years in two stints, has my respect because he interviews

and reports to reach and buttress his opinions, rather than just fire away from the

basement in the quest for clicks, a plague of the business in this era. 

 

 That Sanders didn't realize that about Keeler isn't particularly surprising, but

I learned a long time ago that the absolute wisest reaction for a coach is to act as

if he or she had no idea of what the scribes said, or didn't give a damn. Ask them

how the kids are. Ask them what they thought of the restaurants in Ames. I've seen

writers absolutely deflated when the coach didn't seem to care about or even know

what they wrote. It shouldn't be that way. But it still is disarming. 

 

 Sanders even has evoked memories of the toxic Steve Addazio at Colorado State,

who imagined non-existent "agendas" embedded in even slow-pitch softball

questions. In the modern sports coverage marketplace, such paranoia-drenched

responses make it easy on those in the room to pounce on that as a subject, and

the verbal duels become the focal point of many stories. 

 

 That's unfortunate.  

 

 I'm being careful here because members of the sports media tend to have astonishingly

thin skins, and I won't defend that hypocrisy. The more barbed their approach, in fact,

the more delicate their egoes. If they can't take it, in all good conscience, how

can they dish it out? But I honestly don't think that's the issue here.

 

There are a lot of folks rooting for Sanders at CU -- including me, a Buff who

has served as vice chair of CU's History Department Advisory Board and chair of the

International Affairs Studies Advisory Board.    


So Prime ... ditch the paranoia. 

 

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Kahlil Benson (above), one of the new Buffs up front, has two seasons of

eligibility remaining. On Friday, he said the offensive line overhaul has

been going "pretty good, actually. We're jelling together ... We're sticking

with the basics. As an offensive lineman you take pride in what you do.

It's really our job. You come in, you know what happened last year, and

it's your career now, your future. Me personally, I take pride in what I do."

 

He said of Shedeur Sanders, who was beat up much of last season: "We

actually are like best friends. All of us are real cool and that's good having

a quarterback like that. We're on the same page with him and he's on the

same page with us."

 

Hank Zilinskas, who was recruited by the previous staff and started two

games at center in 2023, has the holdover's viewpoint. 

 

"I think it's gone very well so far," Zilinskas said. "We brought in a lot of guys

with a lot of experience, from all around college football. from different conferences

all over the place. They know what it's like to play big-time ball...You know they're

going to be your brothers. You have to go into meeting them with that kind of

mentality. When you're playing next to a guy, I have to get to know him well.

There's no nervousness or anything like that. It's pretty much a brotherhood.

I think we're going to do a good job in there. Coach [Pat] Shurmur has a great

offensive scheme. Cioach Prime made the statement that we're going to run

the ball more, and I thinnk we're going to do that more effectively than we

have ion the past. We're going to protect Shedeur. That was a big problem

last year. That obviously had to be addressed and I think we've done a good

job of that so far."      

 

 

 

 

 

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Bob Bell's Mile Hi Property 

 
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Big Bill's New York Pizza

8243 S. Holly Street

Centennial CO 80122

(303) 741-9245

 

Big Bill's Big Heart

 

JoAnn B. Ficke Cancer Foundation 

   
 

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