Colorado Buffaloes football coach Deion Sanders won’t end up with the UCLA Bruins after the team fired DeShaun Foster on Sunday. An embarrassing 35-10 loss to the New Mexico Lobos was the final straw for the 0-3 Bruins, which lost its last coach, Chip Kelly, to an offensive coordinator opening with the Ohio State Buckeyes.
USA Today’s Blake Toppmeyer made it clear that Coach Prime would not consider UCLA or the Virginia Tech Hokies, which fired Brent Pry the same day. As Toppmeyer notes, Sanders has it too good in Boulder to ever consider anything else.
Toppmeyer added an important note that makes the Bruins a non-starter for Sanders: UCLA is the USC Trojans’ little brother in football.
“But, seriously, why would Coach Prime say yes to a UCLA job Chip Kelly wanted to leave so badly, he bolted for a coordinator position? Kelly’s successor performed so badly, he lasted just 15 games. UCLA’s program looks a mess within the Big Ten,” Toppmeyer wrote.
“Sanders has built a little kingdom at Colorado. Nobody interferes with his operation. Colorado allows him to bring in his own video crew, turning Buffaloes football into an informercial for Prime. Sanders recruits without ever leaving campus, and, at Colorado, he’s not traveling to play road games at Ohio State.
“In a vacuum, a Big Ten job is a better job than a Big 12 job. In this instance, I fail to see the upside of Sanders coaching at UCLA, in Southern California’s shadow, and leaving his Boulder fiefdom behind.”
Coach Prime’s autonomy at CU is unmatched, and pretty much can’t be matched by any team in the Big Ten or SEC. Those schools, even the bottom-tier teams, aren’t going to sacrifice their reputation for Sanders’ sake. The Buffs were in a unique position to do so in 2022, as a former superpower that had fallen from relevance since the 1990s, outside of a few notable years, coming off a 1-11 finish.
The Bruins aren’t in a position to do that, two years removed from the last of three consecutive eight-plus-win seasons. Case closed on Coach Prime leaving Colorado for UCLA.