Why Deion Sanders Is So Important To The Big 12

Deion Sanders – everyone who knows about him has an opinion. Strong opinions. The most common phrase I’ve heard or read is that he’s ruining college football by means of how he is managing the transfer portal. The immediate attention that Coach Prime brought to Boulder and the Colorado Buffaloes underscores his importance to Colorado. He could become the coaching face of college football given that several high profile coaches recently left the sidelines. But, today, I want to focus on why Deion Sanders is so important to the Big 12.

Will Deion stay at Colorado long enough to make a long-lasting impact?

Before I jump into the importance to the Big 12, let me address whether or not he’s going to stay at Colorado. Nobody, perhaps save Deion himself, knows how long he is going to remain at Colorado. The longer he stays at Colorado, the greater the impact he will have on the school, and consequently on the Big 12. 

My gut says that he is going to be there at least another 5 years. I am not ready to predict that he’ll be in Boulder for 20 more years. But, I feel good thinking he’ll be around to close to 2030.

If he is hoping to “move up” to a higher profile job or to the NFL, then he must have his eyes set on a specific team or situation. There were plenty of NFL job openings this past offseason, so I’m not sure if he’s going to head to the NFL. 

Beyond that, he has spoken often about feeling called by God to lead these young college boys. He feels inspired to teach and lead these young men during very formative years.

Deion’s magnetic personality and blunt honesty (see Louis Vuitton luggage comment) are being utilized to do what almost no coach in college football has done in recent history: draw eyeballs and talent to a location that in recent, modern history has had neither.

You don’t quite get that same experience in the NFL.

If he is looking to move up within college, then he certainly had a few opportunities this past year but didn’t make the jump (it’s possible he wasn’t a candidate but who knows). When head coaching positions at Texas A&M and Alabama opened up, he didn’t make the jump. Perhaps he’s waiting for an opportunity to return to a Florida-based school. Or, perhaps he wanted a bigger stage than Jackson State, and Colorado gives him a large enough stage to accomplish what he wants.

What is Deion doing right now to have such an impact on Colorado and the Big 12?

Deion’s magnetic personality and blunt honesty (see Louis Vuitton luggage comment) are being utilized to do what almost no coach in college football has done in recent history: draw eyeballs and talent to a location that in recent, modern history has had neither.

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Deion is drawing viewers from across the country

Lest you have your doubting shirt on and want to say, “C’mon – Deion Sanders’ impact is overrated! He’s not bringing in that many more eyeballs!” Consider some of the notable viewership data for Colorado from the 2023 season:

Let me give you some important points of interest from the data above and from the rest of the 2023 season data (don’t worry, I do the heavy lifting for you). Did you know the following?:

• Colorado played in 4 of the top 25 highest viewed games of 2023, which includes bowl games and CFP games. 
• Their Week 4 game against Oregon was the second highest rated game during the 2023 regular season, only behind Ohio State vs Michigan. 
• That Oregon game also had better viewership than the Pac-12 Championship and the Big 10 Championship games!

That from a 4-8 team! And, two of the 4 opponents in those matchups didn’t even play in a bowl game (TCU and Nebraska).

Contrast these results above to 2022. 

• Colorado’s highest viewed game in 2022 was in week 1 against TCU when they had 1.25M viewers on ESPN on a Friday night slot late.
• Colorado’s 2nd highest viewed game in 2022 was in week 10 against Oregon when they had 942K viewers. They got over 10x that in 2023 in the exact same time slot!
• Colorado had about half of its games on the Pac-12 network, and that distribution is minimal.
• In 2022, Colorado had over 4+ million viewers cumulatively. In 2023, they topped that in week 1!

Coach Prime put the Colorado Buffaloes in Prime Time. Colorado viewership increased from 2022 to 2023 by over 13x! They had ~4M viewers in 2022 and over 53M viewers in 2023.

Deion is recruiting high level talent to Boulder

Deion is bringing recruits to Boulder at a different level than we’ve seen in Boulder. Consider the following:

• Since 2000, Colorado has recruited four 5-star high school players to Boulder (per 247sports). Two of them came under Deion.
• Since 2000, Colorado has recruited 45 high school players who were a 4-star or 5-star rated player (per 247sports). Eight of these players (almost 20%) have come under Deion.
• In 2024, Colorado’s average player rating of 0.911 (per 247sports) ranked 10th highest in the country. They were well within, and above in some cases, the SEC and Big 10 recruiting ranks.

Overall class rank is impacted by the volume of recruits, so I haven’t been factoring that in. I’m looking specifically at the average rating of whatever volume of talent that a school brought in. During the 2024 recruiting cycle, Deion and Colorado brought in 10 high school recruits. 

That is not a large volume of recruits. The critical component though, is that that group was a very strong class.

The next best schools in the Big 12 during the 2024 recruiting cycle, in terms of average player rating, were Texas Tech and UCF. They ranked 26th and 27th respectively with a 0.891 and 0.883 average player rating.

This is something to note and to watch. Ignore the noise in the transfer portal. If Deion and his staff bring in more talent over the next few years at this level, and if they pick up the volume of high school recruits relative to transfer portal recruits, then you are talking about SEC caliber talent that will reside in Boulder, CO.

Why does everything that Deion is doing matter to the Big 12?

As Texas and Oklahoma, the 800 pound blue blood behemoths, leave the conference, the Big 12 faces a new challenge: How do we get national attention?

The conference needs national attention in the current landscape of college football. As long as the SEC, Big 10, ACC, Big 12, and Group of 5 conferences all play in the same division and compete for the same title, then national relevance is critical. Perception and branding are critical.

While the current College Football Playoff model gives each P4 conference an automatic bid, the at-large bids are going to go to those who are perceived to be the best. Branding and garnering national attention are key ingredients to being perceived as the next best available to go into the CFP.

Money will then follow to the conference who places more teams in the CFP. As long as the Big 12 is trying to compete with the SEC and Big 10, then it needs to put itself in a place to bring in more money. Money impacts the ability to build a program, facilities, and improve recruiting. 

The Big 12 needs to have a team or two (more like three or four) who are legitimately in the discussion for CFP at-large bids. But, their two most prominent brands are now going to be representing a neighboring conference, (the SEC).

For the better part of the past 15 years, Texas or Oklahoma were the consistent brands that the nation talked about when they started to talk about schools in the Midwest / Great Plains / Texas area. And for good reason.

Texas or Oklahoma won the Big 12 title 18 out of 29 possible tries. Since 2011, Texas or Oklahoma have been ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 each year, and 8 times one of them was in the top 5 (mostly Oklahoma).

Save for 2015 when TCU and Baylor both started out in the top 5, no other team in the Big 12 was close to the Top 5 in the AP preseason poll. The preseason poll helps to drive branding. It really impacts the first half of the season and the perception of who is strong, who is a surprise, and who is a disappointment.

Enter Colorado and Coach Prime

This is where Colorado could come in.

No other school has recruited at quite the same level as Colorado has these past two years. It has actually been at an SEC / Big 10 level (setting aside the wildness in the Transfer Portal). No other school has garnered as much national attention, as many eyeballs, or created quite the stir that Colorado has.

It is true that Colorado hasn’t really done much on the field yet under Deion. If he continues to recruit at the level he is, then I believe that that will follow.

Deion has a chance…I say chance because nothing is certain. But, Deion has a chance to create something at Colorado in the Big 12. The road is clear in front of him. No one school sits on the Big 12 throne. It is literally going to be a King of the Hill battle this year and going forward in the Big 12.

In a college football world where the major names and brands have almost all fled to the SEC or Big 10, Colorado could develop into a brand in the Big 12 that could compete with the proverbial big boys. Again, I say there is a chance because nothing is certain. 

With Colorado recruiting at the level that they are (attracting 5-star talent namely), then suddenly you have a school who is recruiting on par with what Texas and Oklahoma were recruiting when in the Big 12. 

Within 3-5 years, if Colorado continues to recruit and then starts to win at a high level, then this could give the Big 12 a new flagship program that could be a perennial CFP contender. Having a school that can seriously compete in the CFP keeps a conference nationally relevant. 

Think about this: What would the ACC be if Florida State and Clemson left? They would still be a Power 4 conference, but suddenly, they would clearly be the 4th best conference, whereas right now they have a reasonable claim as the 3rd best conference.

While the current model of a wide open conference is appealing as a viewer for the Big 12, having a behemoth in the conference helps keep the conference nationally relevant.

Can Colorado become a blue blood and carry the water for the Big 12?

I don’t know. The inspiration for this article is that I’ve reflected on what Colorado could be in the next few years. They have to get better. But, as long as Deion is there, they are going to attract more attention than anyone else in the conference.

Sure, Utah and Oklahoma State might carry the banner this year. While I’m high on Utah under Kyle Whittingham, there have been whispers about when he is going to retire. If he stays around for another 20 years, then perhaps Utah becomes a perennial top 15 team. 

But, even then, Utah hasn’t grabbed national attention after winning two Pac-12 titles in the same way that Deion and Colorado did amidst a 4-8 season. And Oklahoma State feels like a natural fit to be the face of the conference, having seen some tremendous success under Mike Gundy. Yet, again, Oklahoma State didn’t have a single regular season game in the top 25 of tv viewership.

If Colorado is able to thread the needle and actually start winning on a grand scale, then the branding that Coach Prime has is going to lend itself to Colorado being propped up. And, by natural consequence, the Big 12 would be propped up too.

Think about this: Colorado went into that Oregon game ranked #19. While early season rankings are always really difficult to grapple with, do we really think that Colorado was the 19th best team in the country? Of course not.

Yet, they are going to receive the benefit of the doubt. I guarantee that an 11-1 Colorado team is going to be ranked higher than most other 11-1 teams. An 11-1 Colorado team that goes to the Big 12 title game, loses, and is 11-2 trying to get into the CFP is most likely getting in.

Only time will tell. And, I’m so curious to see what happens.

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