The Prime Piper has the world marching to Boulder

Saturday's spectacular win at TCU proves there's business behind Deion Sanders' blarney.

Travis Hunter

The overreactions came rolling in like thunder. 

The only reason Shedeur Sanders isn’t a lock for the Heisman Trophy is that he has to joust with Travis Hunter, his Colorado teammate. 

The way Deion Sanders has played 52-card-pickup with the Colorado roster is now the workable solution to any program’s slump. 

And the crazed, charco-broiled events of Saturday in TCU’s Amon Carter Stadium are now a statement that justifies all, even on the first day of September.

But most of those overreactions, and some others, came from Deion himself. After the Buffaloes outlasted TCU, last year’s College Football Playoff runnerup, he built a whole forest of straw men and unleashed the torch, saying he “had receipts” on all those who said he would eventually vaporize Colorado’s program. Never mind that the Buffs were coming off a 1-11 season that quantifiably was the worst in the history of the conference that used to be the Pac-12 but instead is now a TwoPac, according to the Internet comedians. Deion’s contention is that he found a program that consisted of nothing more than droplets, and all he did was wipe them clean. The fact that he was gloating over a 1-0 start and a 45-42 win, as riveting as it was, is just his way of life. You don’t get to be Deion without crawling out on the weakest limb and then yearning for another one less comfortable.

That was Muhammad Ali’s public-relations method. He could beat Karl Mildenberger and make it sound like historic overachievement. That was Earl Woods’ way, too. He said his son Tiger would dwarf everyone else in the workaday sports world. Darned if he wasn’t understating the case.

Now, in one game, Sanders has turned Colorado into the most interesting college team in America, at least until Standard Time arrives. It will play Nebraska Saturday in Boulder, in a rivalry that has been renewed only twice since 2010 but has lost none of its contempt. The worst seat in the house can be had for no less than $333.

Overpromise, then overdeliver. Sanders has done it since he was a teeanger. Only the best impressarios can nickname themselves and make money doing so. Sanders says that a friend came up with Prime Time back in Fort Myers, when Deion scored 37 points in a high school hoop game. Deion went with it, and emphatically beat back Florida State’s attempts to turn him into “Neon Deion.”

While in Atlanta, Sanders claimed that he “built” the Georgia Dome, and he personalized No. 21 the way Michael Jordan owned No. 23. You’ll notice that No. 21, for Colorado, is Deion’s son Shilo, a safety whose previous stops were South Carolina and Jackson State, where Deion coached for the past three years. It’s somewhat surprising that Folsom Field’s address hasn’t been changed to the intersection of 21st and Prime, which was one of Deion’s segments on the NFL Network. But there’s still time.

So when Sanders decided he was going to become a college football coach and would seize upon the game’s ethical transformation to make both Jackson State and Colorado win with NFL ruthlessness, people from afar couldn’t wait to see him exposed. Underneath, Sanders was doing shrewd things like hiring Sean Lewis, the bright head coach at Kent State who became his offensive coordinator and, probably, the heir apparent at Colorado. Deion and his staff would mine the mid-majors for linemen who could replace Colorado’s stuffed imposters. And real players, like Hunter and freshman Dylan Edwards, would follow Sanders anywhere. Hunter transferred from Florida State to Jackson State before this. Edwards, who has known Sanders since childhood, turned down College Football Playoff perennials for a chance to experience 12-degree Boulder mornings.

Saturday would be the day of reckoning. Colorado dealt TCU a three-and-out to start the game, then marched to a touchdown. S. Sanders’ first play was a little clear-out completion to Edwards, for seven yards. It would be the prelude to a 510-yard, four-touchdown day in which Sanders would conjure up five go-ahead TD drives, yet it was predictive. Again and again, Sanders ignored whatever pass rush there was, even though TCU sacked him four times. He did not yield to the temptation of running his way out of (and into) trouble. Expert quarterbacks are high-processing problem solvers, able to decode in no time flat. Shedeur made the right decision time after time, and he has the arm and the toughness to enforce those calls. Nothing that he did Saturday indicated this was his first game in a “power conference,” whatever that means. “I don’t fear names,” he said simply, in a voice and with a smile that was a dialed-back Deion.

Yet Hunter probably was better, considering that he played 129 snaps on a brutal day with an 11 a.m. CDT kickoff. His interception was pure Deion, too, on the Colorado 3-yard-line, as he burst perfectly to the spot where Chandler Morris was throwing. Hunter’s Shohei Ohtani act made him the first FBS player in 20 years to surpass 100 receiving yards and also provide a pick. Hunter and three other Buffaloes caught 100 or more yards in passes. Colorado never had more than two 100-yard receivers in the same game.

Not coincidentally, Deion occasionally played both ways in the NFL, and his baseball career was no fly-by. He played 641 games and stole 186 bases, and hit .263 with an OPS of .711. One day he played for the Falcons and then flew to Pittsburgh to play for the Braves in an NLCS game that night. He is remembered for gracelessly pouring water on broadcaster Tim McCarver in the clubhouse, but Braves’ manager Bobby Cox, lifelong foe of self-promotion, was known to respect Sanders.

Edwards had Colorado’s two most spectacular catch-runs of the day and became the first Pac-12 freshman in seven years to score four TDs from scrimmage. He also was the first FBS player to score four times from scrimmage in a debut since Kentucky’s Benny Snell, seven years ago.

Beyond that, Colorado was the more disciplined team. TCU had seven penalties before the Buffaloes suffered their first, and CU had six, all game.

TCU might not be very good, after getting plundered by the NFL draft, but it was ranked 17th. Colorado hadn’t beaten a team ranked that high since 17th-ranked Kansas, 14 years ago, and hadn’t beaten a team that ranked that high on the road since 12th-ranked Kansas State, 22 years ago.

The reaction was torrential, at least on the social media outlets where the rich and famous live. There is a wide cross-section of pro athletes who live vicariously through Sanders’ flamboyance and fearlessness. Most of them are scared of flying too close to the ground. It’s where Deion lives.

The danger zone is still there. Colorado must play Oregon and USC, and their marquee quarterbacks, before the end of September. Nebraska by no means is a 2-foot putt. A well-placed injury could be devastating in a Pac-12 that is going out with a primal scream worthy of Thelma and Louise, and with NFL quarterbacks everywhere you look.

We can also speculate that Deion, if he keeps this up, will leave Colorado approximately 2.6 seconds after Shedeur does. Any number of programs will shatter the piggy bank to see if he can recreate the mania.

For now, let’s just count the days until Colorado cranks it up again and keeps providing an alternative to college football’s Georgia-Alabama line. After a winter, spring and summer of noise without evidence, the Buffaloes find themselves seen and herd.

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