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Deion Sanders has yet to even coach a regular season game for the Colorado Buffaloes, yet we're already talking about his 2024 recruiting class. This is the way for college athletics, where often times there's little living in the moment and more looking ahead. It's easy to do that with Sanders, however, as most are awaiting to see just how this venture of his in Boulder is going to play out. We're all eagerly counting down to the Buffaloes first game against last year's surprising College Football Playoff runner-up, TCU.
Deion Sanders made a splash with transfer portal in 2023
One of the most intriguing things about Sanders and Colorado in 2023 was how they used the transfer portal. No one got more scrutiny over their actions in the portal than Sanders and the Buffaloes did. Nobody. Whether you agree with his use of the portal or not, Sanders played by the rules at hand, and in doing so, completely restructured his roster at Colorado.
To date, the Buffaloes have brought in a whopping 50 new players in, while 57 have transferred out, which gives them the No. 1 ranked transfer class, per 247sports. As far as traditional recruiting, they had a composite ranking of 29, and an overall of 21.
With early signing day in December now, it's harder for new head coaches to get any sort of headway coming into their new schools, that includes going even into the following season. Sanders wasn't hired until December 3 of last year; the early signing period began on December 21, giving Coach Prime only 18 days to make any sort of recruiting activity.
It remains to be seen how Sanders will be as a traditional recruiter at a Power-5 level, even though he did a pretty remarkable job while at Jackson St., stealing Power-5 level talent. But now the competition will be a lot heavier, where the likes of not only his Pac-12 foes will by competing against him for talent, but also other high-end recruiters in other conferences, like Nick Saban, Ryan Day and Dabo Swinney.
Is that showing ahead for the 2024 class?
Colorado football's 2024 recruiting class doesn't look great so far
So far, the Colorado football 2024 recruiting class only has a total of eight commitments, which ranks the Buffaloes with the No. 61 overall class in the country. Among those eight, just one player is in the top 100 in the 247Sports Composite rankings, while another is ranked in the top 200.
Is it too early to panic on this class?
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There's always a rush to judgment, no matter whether we're talking football, politics or anything else. It's just natural. And as polarizing as Sanders is, everyone will be judging every single action he makes for the rest of his career, including of all things a recruiting class that can't even sign until five months from now — which in college football, isn't that long.
However, in college football, the name of the game is still getting on the recruiting trail, making your presence known at the high school level and recruiting kids early on. “He has, by no stretch of the imagination, been a menace in the high school recruiting realm,” The Athletics' Ari Wasserman wrote.
Again, Sanders has had but a cup of coffee at Boulder, only being there since December. It's possible that he has yet to make this par of his full-time agenda, mainly focusing on the transfer portal instead, among a plethora of other things, his health being one of them.
“I look at top-five lists all day,” Wasserman continued. “I see which programs are represented the most. Colorado certainly appears in more discussions than ever, but this isn’t going to be an overnight makeover. Simply being Deion Sanders isn’t enough, as it turns out, to walk in and sign a top-15 class in his first full cycle. I thought maybe it would.”
Living off the Coach Prime name
Sanders, in some ways, is living off his name and persona this season. And he can continue to live off that for at least a little while, as he doesn't have to do much to improve the Colorado football program this season. The Buffaloes were one of the worst teams in college football last year, only winning one game. So, to say he has a lot of leeway at the beginning of his tenure is an understatement. But what can he do after?
The thing with Sanders is that nobody knows what moves he's going to make next. He's completely unorthodox in his methods as a college football head coach, much like he was as a player. And again, that's without him even coaching a single game at the Power-5 level yet. Ultimately, no one has a clue what he's going to do. We know that he has the capabilities to cause a complete paradigm shift, as has been evident. But will that stick? Is how he's assembling a roster the new way or just a short term trend?
