Former Colorado players were really excited about the future once they found out the program was hiring Deion Sanders to be the new head coach. That excitement did not last long as we saw Sanders tell his group of players to hit the transfer portal because he was bringing his own luggage with him.
In a new Associated Press story, former players talked about how so many transfers into the program forced them out.
Offensive lineman Luke Eckardt recalled the excitement of finding out that Deion Sanders would be his new head coach at Colorado in a new Associated Press story:
“It was a feeling of awe because it’s Deion Sanders, and you play video games like ‘Madden’ and he’s on there,” Eckardt said in an interview with The Associated Press. “You’re playing with a controller. Now it’s different. It’s a real dude. That’s what I thought at first. But then it was like a seeping feeling of fear.”
Eckardt was cast aside and cut the next day after a meeting that lasted less than five minutes. He landed at Iowa Western Community College where he was the school’s starting left tackle this season.
“So far, these people have been the only ones who have shown me that they really wanted me here,” Eckardt said.
Former Colorado defensive back Xavier Smith had the same things to say about Sanders.
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“We all have expectations of a coach and I just feel like those expectations weren’t met,” Smith said.
Like Eckardt, Xavier Smith had spent a year at Colorado under the previous coaching regime.
Smith played in the spring game, got cut, and finished the spring semester at CU before accepting an offer from Austin Peay in Clarksville, Tennessee.
More than 50 members of last year’s team entered the transfer portal since Sanders’ arrival in December 2022, leaving only 10 scholarship players who were part of a 2022 roster that finished the season 1-11.
Smith said he used what happened in Colorado as motivation.
“To me, it’s like, ‘Who are you to tell me that I’m not good enough to play here?’ ” Smith said. “So it’s just proving people wrong and proving to myself and my family that I am who I say I am and that I’m going to do what I say I’m going to do.”
Sanders brought in the No. 1 transfer portal class in the 2023 cycle, but it did not help much in his first completed season.
