Colorado coach Deion Sanders has faced numerous personal and professional challenges in the past six months.
Sanders affirmed his commitment to overcoming adversity and turning the football program around.
The team is now starting freshman quarterback Julian Lewis for the remainder of the season.
In the past seven months since April, Colorado football coach Deion Sanders has endured cancer surgery, blood-clot surgery, a 3-7 football season with three different starting quarterbacks and even the announced departure of the man who hired him for the job.
All of this has led to questions about his future at age 58. But Sanders gave a strong statement about that Tuesday as his team prepares for its final two games this year, starting Saturday night at home against Arizona State.
“Please understand, if anybody is built for adversity, I am,” Sanders said at his weekly news conference. “If anybody has built to change, I am. If anybody’s built to overcome situations and trials and tribulations, I am. You got the right man. I promise you, you do. And I’m gonna prove that to you. I am. Just give me an opportunity and give me a little more time, and I’m gonna prove that to you. I will. I promise you that.”
Colorado safety Ben Finneseth vouched for this Tuesday at the same news conference.
“He’s a tough son of a gun, and he’ll never quit,” Finneseth said. “I don’t think he even cares what happens to him, to be honest with you. You can’t even tell that he’s going through something because he shows up every day with the same attitude.”
Deion Sanders says he hasn’t forgotten how to coach
Sanders also was asked about a recent comment he made in an interview with former NFL star Champ Bailey for TNT. He told Bailey that Colorado coaches “missed on several players’ this year, implying certain players didn’t live up to expectations.
Sanders said Tuesday he was just being “brutally honest.”
“I haven’t forgotten how to coach in a year,” said Sanders, whose team finished 9-4 in 2024. “Like, I hadn’t forgot how to coach in a year. A lot of these wonderful coaches out there that is not winning this season, they had forgotten how to coach in a year. We did some things we shouldn’t have done. That’s on us.”
So how does he correct that in evaluating players for next year?
“God, I can’t say what I want to say,” Sanders said. “Let me try and give it to you in a way I can say it. I know what I want. I know what I should see. And this year, I’m gonna see it. That’s the best way I could place it to you. I’m gonna see it. No ifs, ands or buts about it I’m gonna see what I want to see.”
What is Deion Sanders and Colorado playing for now?
Colorado has been eliminated from postseason eligibility but still has reasons to finish strong. Among the stakes:
∎ Freshman quarterback Julian “JuJu” Lewis has been given the starting job and plans to burn his redshirt year after playing in three games this season, including two as a backup quarterback. Under current NCAA rules, players can play in up to four games in one season before they use one of their four seasons of college eligibility. By giving him the keys to the car, Sanders is investing in next year now.
“Like I was telling him is you have a great opportunity and you can show the world right now who you are,’ Finneseth said about Lewis.
∎ Sanders wants to show he can right the ship after agreeing to new five-year contract in March worth more than $10 million annually. His three-year record at Colorado is 16-19. A strong finish would show potential recruits the makings of a turnaround they can join.
“We’re gonna turn this thing around, and we’re gonna be different,” Finneseth said. “And we’re not gonna follow the crowd. So it’s gonna be a super cool thing.”
∎ This is the final home game for several seniors, including some players that followed Sanders from his previous job at Jackson State. One of them is kicker Alejandro Mata.
Those players “bet one me,” Sanders said. “They bet on me, man. They took a chance on me, and I applaud that. And I pray to God I have not disappointed them as a man, as a coach, as a leader.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com