It’s no secret that there are mighty expectations for Deion Sanders as he takes over the football program at Colorado. It’s also no secret that he inherited a program that finished 1-11 last year, bringing up the rear of the PAC-12. An overhaul was obviously in order.
“So the mindsets of those individuals got to change or they got to go. And that’s not nothing unordinary. When a new CEO comes into a new situation, that’s normally what happens in the workplace. Why wouldn’t it happen in sports? That’s normalcy. Because you got to believe that everyone in house believes in you and your program. Not someone snickering or not totally all in on what you’re trying to do,” Sanders said.
Part of overhauling a program means assessing what you have and mining the assets you inherited. Sanders went into the spring game looking to evaluate his coaches along with their ability to evaluate the kids.
“I’m not looking for them to fail. I’m looking to them to succeed. I really want to see the level in how they communicate and how they get that guy to level up. How to assess this talent and how they bring it back and say, we’ve got to move on from that,” Sanders said.
Physical consistency
When it comes to working with the talent that will ultimately be a part of this team Sanders knows what the physical part must look like. It’s all about consistency, which begins with the strength and conditioning program.
“Strength and conditioning prepares you for what you’re able to do consistently. I just told one of the receivers the other day that Jerry Rice wasn’t a 4.5 or a 4.4 (speed), but he was a 4.6 consistently. So when you got tired, he still was a 4.6, you may start out equal, but as that game elapsed, he’s still going to be what he was at the beginning of the game,” said Sanders.
Like any good coach, Deion Sanders is not asking anything of his players that he’s not asking of himself.
“Yes, I got to get better as a coach, as a man, as a father, as a leader in all those aspects. I got to get better. I got to be able to touch everything in this building and make them better as well.”
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