Former Jackson State football coach Deion Sanders has been active in promoting and assessing HBCU teams and players since his time with the Tigers program last season. Sanders, the current Colorado Buffaloes boss in the Big-12, had a mouthful to say about Malachi Wideman, a promising young prospect.

Sanders has been busy lately preparing for the college football season. He is reportedly set to add an NFL veteran coach to his staff at Colorado. He fired back at a Pac-12 coach who called his current gig a ‘lose-lose situation.'

Recently, ‘Coach Prime' revealed he has been called about Wideman recently and has given teams his honest assessment. The talented 6-foot-5, 190 pound receiver has scheduled workouts with several NFL teams recently.

According to Sanders, Wideman, who started his career at Tennessee before transferring to Jackson State football, has a long way to go before becoming a true professional.

“I’m not going to tell you the team, but it’s a team who just called me yesterday about Malachi, and I told him the truth about Malachi, (He’s) a Florida boy, so you know he’s one of my favorites,” Sanders said.

“There are certain things that Malachi has to work on as a young man to develop himself to being a professional. A lot of these guys think when you go pro, you go pro. So you got to be a pro before you’re pro. You don’t get to the pros and say, I’m a pro.

“Malachi just has to work on some personal things that constitutes that he’s a pro even before he makes it to the pro,” the NFL Hall-of-Famer concluded.

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Whether Wideman goes pro in the NFL or perhaps another sport, he brings incredible athleticism to the table. Wideman had a career-best 34 receptions for 540 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2021 with the Tigers.

“Oh my God, Malachi, that kid probably should be in the darn NBA,” Sanders said about Wideman's diverse talents.

“Let’s just get this straight. And that’s what I told the gentleman who called me, one of the scouts, I said go watch his basketball tape from high school and then call me back. He said oh my God. I said yeah, that’s the type of athlete he is. But life has to match up to the smart, tough, fast, disciplined, it has to match up with who he’s trying to be.”