Deion Sanders compared his style to Smart, Saban. Is it accurate?

Deion Sanders and Colorado are on a wild transfer portal ride. Coach Prime recently compared his approach to Georgia head coach Kirby Smart‘s and Alabama head coach Nick Saban‘s.

“That (approach is) the same thing. The only difference between me and those guys is I actually played in the NFL,” Sanders told the Pat McAfee Show.

“This is not a shot. I love those guys. Those guys are on my Mount Rushmore, they’re up there,”

More than 70 players hit the transfer portal from Colorado since August.

You sure Kirby and Saban done it that way, Coach Prime?

You sure about that?

For the record, I believe Deion Sanders is on to something with those comparisons

Nick Saban has his famous ‘process.’

And Alabama also has its infamous ‘process’-ing of players who don’t fit the Bama bill.

Kirby Smart and Georgia know how to get players to buy in as leaders better than anyone in college football.

And those players make you feel it if you want to come in and be a player that tries to flip Erk Russell’s ‘Big Team Little Me’ concept upside down.

Hello, Bear Alexander.

Goodbye, Bear Alexander.

So I get it when Sanders gives context to Colorado’s exodus like this:

“There’s no way that I could put new furniture in this beautiful home if we don’t clean out the old furniture,” Sanders continued with Pat McAfee.

“And that’s not a shot. It’s great furniture, a lot of people would love it, and a lot of people are gonna love it, but that’s not what we want. That’s not what we desire.”

Kirby Smart and Nick Saban overhauled their programs to varying degrees, but neither situation is as drastic as Sanders’s Boulder transformation

Smart’s cupboards weren’t bare when he moved in to Mark Richt‘s Dawg House.

Saban inherited a slightly more desperate situation, but still had players and a National Championship within three seasons – and no transfer portal to help.

It seems like Sanders knows that the talent in his program is nowhere close to the caliber he would need to win a Pac-12 Championship, let alone a CFP matchup or a National Championship.

So he let that roster know.

You’re either a fit here, or you’re not.

It’s just part of the game now. Would Smart and Saban have done it that way if the transfer portal existed?

At Georgia and Alabama?

Maybe. But certainly not to the Coach Prime extent.

There weren’t 70 players on either roster who needed to leave in order for Smart or Saban to kickstart those programs.

Yes, there were a few in Athens and Tuscaloosa who didn’t fit the mold of these two championship coaches.

The solution for that: turn up the heat, see what’s left, and recruit like hell.

Deion Sanders doesn’t have a Nick Chubb or a Sony Michel to set the tone. But he does have the transfer portal at his disposal.

So he announces his son – Shedeur Sanders – as the team’s starting quarterback before spring practice.

He turns up the heat his own way. Pisses players off who aren’t willing to strap themselves to this rocket, and they leave.

Or, he just ‘cuts’ players his own way. And they leave.

Saban and Smart did it, too, but not this quickly. Their roster overhauls happened like a glacier moving over land and re-shaping the land.

Coach Prime doesn’t have that kind of time.

Sanders is using dynamite and starting his own Colorado Rocky Mountain avalanche

Will it work?

He’s easy to find, like his spring game t-shirt says.

But will Colorado be worth finding in a few years?

If Sanders really can execute the Kirby Smart / Nick Saban game plan, then it will be.

“You’ve got to be crazy to think this just happens. It don’t just happen, you make it happen. You know what you want,” Sanders said.

“I can’t stand people who pull up through a drive-thru and don’t know what they want. Before I get there, I know what I want. I’m not just making this stuff up as we go. We know what we want, and I don’t concede. I don’t settle. I know what I want and I know what I’m gonna get. We don’t settle.”

Saban and Smart didn’t settle.

Sanders starts his power-five career on a smaller platform then either of them, but with a much more powerful weapon.

The problem is, it cuts both ways.

Time will tell if this unprecedented transfer portal gash can actually heal and rehabilitate as Prime envisions – or leave behind a wound that’s too deep to salvage.

The post Deion Sanders compared his style to Smart, Saban. Is it accurate? appeared first on On3.