Deion Sanders on rivalry game with Nebraska: 'It's personal'

Colorado head coach Deion Sanders is already full steam ahead for rekindling the rivalry with Nebraska ahead of a matchup with the Cornhuskers for his home debut as the Buffaloes head coach. And Sanders hasn’t been shy about talking about the rivalry and taking it seriously.

On the Colorado Football Coaches Show, Sanders laid out the stakes. He might not have a history in the rivalry, but he knows how deep it can run. As such, Sanders is making matters personal this weekend.

“This team, this is a personal game. Not only does it mean a lot to you. It means a lot to us. And we want to represent our home. We talked about something about homes. Nobody’s going to come in my home, my natural home and whoop me. Nobody’s going to grab me out of my car and whoop me. Nobody’s going to come anywhere I call mine and whoop me,” Sanders said. “We gotta have that same passion, that same energy when it comes to this game. We’re not gonna let nobody come into our house and whoop us. It’s personal.”

To hammer home the message about taking personal things seriously, more seriously than anything else, Sanders leaned on some messages from pop culture icons.

He also knows he has some work to do to hammer the intensity of the rivalry into his current crop of players that never really watched the two programs play in their respective heydays.

Enter: Video messages from Snoop Dogg and Lil’ Wayne discussing things that are personal and matter deeply to them that Sanders played for his team.

“They’re well-coached, it’s a tremendous rivalry. Some of these kids don’t know the extent of this rivalry. They have a bunch of new kids they’re not admitting, just like have a bunch of new kids and we got to integrate them to understand the level of the rivalry,” Sanders said. “That’s why the whole message this week was, ‘It’s personal.’ You know, we got videos from Snoop Dogg, we got videos from Lil’ Wayne, and I told them to give me something that meant something that was personal to you. In the morning, we hit play and the kids hear a video from these icons about something that was personal or why it meant so much to them.”

Nebraska and Colorado are slated for a noon kickoff at Folsom Field in Boulder on Saturday, Sept. 9.