Deion Sanders calls for more stick-to-itiveness from college players

Colorado head coach Deion Sanders is selective when it comes to offering high school players a scholarship.

With the transfer portal rules the way that they are at the moment, Sanders tries to avoid offering players who are a risk to leave the program.

“We’re not adding freshmen, unless they are mature or impactful – I’m talking about high school kids,” Deion Sanders told Robert Griffin III on his podcast. “Because you grab a high school kid, and he comes early, goes through the spring or whatever, and he doesn’t play like he wants to play, then he goes back through the spring again, because he’s an early enrollee, and he’s not first-team or whatever — you might as well wave to him, because he’s going to jump in the portal on you. That’s just 100 percent.”

Sanders would like to see the transfer portal rules change at some point. He is in favor of being allowed to leave, if your coach leaves, without penalty. But otherwise, he believes there should be a punishment for transferring out.

However, as the rules currently stand, it’s not worth it to bring in high school kids who could leave in a year, according to Coach Prime.

“What I think it should be, it should always be if your coach leaves, you can leave,” Sanders said. “If your coach leaves you can leave. Other than that, we’ve got to have some more stick-to-itiveness, because now, this is what you’re dealing with.”

Deion Sanders doesn’t exclude high school recruits as he looks to fill out his roster, but he is much more willing to offer a player out of the transfer portal who is older and has more experience than he is to offer someone straight out of high school.

“Our formula is, unless they’re really mature or they can flat out ball, I get them out of the portal,” Sanders said. “Because I already know the rights, the wrongs, the lefts, the mistakes that he’s made. And he’s honest and he sees this as a second chance.

“So I like that aspect of it. But now, when the coaches have the chance to bounce, the kids have got to have the ability to bounce with no repercussion. If the coach dips, you should be able to dip.”

Sanders is entering his second season leading the Colorado program. The Buffaloes finished 4-8 in Year 1, winning three more games than Colorado did the year before Sanders arrived.