Deion Sanders is the antithesis of Clark Lea

[BrentVU]

From the Athletic:

No school has put more players in the portal than Colorado. After Monday’s departures, Colorado has now seen 46 scholarship football players enter the transfer portal in 2022-23, with 41 exiting since Sanders took over. No other Power 5 program has lost more than 29 in this cycle.

Colorado had 83 scholarship players at the start of the 2022 season. Only 20 are still on the roster as of Monday night.

Newly hired coaches attempt to flip their rosters quickly to load up on their hand-picked recruits. That’s standard operating procedure in college football, and it’s common to see this much attrition play out over the course of the first 12-24 months of a tenure. What is not normal is running off this many players in the first six months.

I have to think this is not going to pay off for Deion Sanders. Using the portal to fill in some roster gaps is one thing, but driving off players who signed scholarships under a previous regime... is just wrong, it seems to me. It makes a mockery of what the sport is. Not even the UT's and Ole Misses (under Lane Kiffin) have taken it to this extreme.

Maybe I'm just smug, but I like Clark Lea's approach better. Everyone who loves college football should be rooting for him.

[AuricGoldfinger]

Colorado had 18 players enter the portal on Monday alone.

Everyone talks about how the portal and immediate eligibility are good for the student-athlete, but try telling that to those 18 players who are going to have very few options this late in the year.

[FayetteDore]

I remember seeing the clips of his very first meeting with his new players after moving out to Colorado. As I recall, he was even then encouraging their departure in, uh, a very non-diplomatic way. When you have coaches like that, I'm not going to fault players for wanting to bail and I'm glad the portal exists for them, without having to sit out a year elsewhere. CCL's approach that everyone has to earn their numbers, regardless of past performance, was mild compared to Sanders. CCL was encouraging his guys to stay and compete and prove themselves anew.

It's gonna be very interesting to see how Sanders program turns out a P-5 school.

EDITED TO ADD: Yeah, for once my memory was correct. This story just popped up in the Tennessean, recalling his first meetings with his players, including this excerpt:

Deion Sanders issued several warnings about his roster strategy after his hiring at Colorado in early December.
The Buffaloes' new football coach has told his inherited players that “we're going to try to make you quit,” that “we’re gonna move on” from some players and that he wanted them to “get ready to go ahead and jump” in the transfer portal to leave.
On Saturday after his first spring game in Boulder, the threat grew more imminent:
“We’ve got to make some decisions,” he said. “That’s gonna be on me now.”
Then came Sunday and Monday, when at least 18 Colorado players said they were headed for the exits, as of Monday afternoon.
It’s not clear how many were nudged out the door by Sanders and his staff or how many decided to leave on their own, because there were some individual surprises.

[OldDude]

"It makes a mockery of what the sport is"

I liked the article, but have to say that college sports long ago descended past "mockery" status.

[BrentVU]

Still more on this (Premium from the Athletic): players talk about what it was like to be "cut" by Deion Sanders... some departing players say Sanders barely knew the names of the returning players, and coaches gave much different treatment to players they had brought in vs. returning players...

https://theathletic.com/4451509/2023/04 ... ign=601983