FRISCO, Texas - Deion Sanders walked into Big 12 media day on Tuesday with a very different story to tell than the one he carried into The Star a year ago.
Back then, the Colorado coach was physically present but clearly not at full strength. He later explained that he had been dealing with bladder cancer, something the public did not know at the time. He said he tried to hide how much weight he had lost by layering shorts and a hoodie under his suit and putting on a polished front.
“Smiling, stylin’, profiling, trying to do the best I could to falsify how I was really feeling.”
This time around, Sanders said the difference was obvious.
“I’m back, I’m healthy, and I got my thought process, my me back,” Sanders said.
Colorado is coming off a 3-9 season in 2025, and Sanders has already admitted that his absence during the spring and summer last year hurt the program. Now cancer-free, he said he has thrown himself into the Buffaloes’ reset.
Senior safety Ben Finneseth, entering his fourth season under Sanders, said the coach’s presence has been impossible to miss.
“He’s around every day this summer,” Finneseth said. “He’s been around more than I’ve ever seen him in my entire life. The way that he’s bought into our team this year, he’s taken it up another level.”
Sanders said he has been hands-on with every part of the roster-building process, from evaluating players already in the locker room to reviewing recruits.
“I sat there (in the office) with a couple of staffers and we watched every single guy that’s in that locker room on film and made the decision on every single guy, every single recruit,” he said. “Everything has just gone up.
Everything. There’s not a ‘T’ that’s not crossed, an ‘I’ that’s not dotted.
We are on it, and you can see by the recruiting, you can see by the team that we’ve assembled.”
The Buffaloes’ roster includes returning players such as quarterback JuJu Lewis, tight end Zach Atkins, receiver Joseph Williams, running back Micah Welch and Finneseth. It also features a heavy transfer influx, with receivers Danny Scudero and DeAndre Moore, defensive lineman Santana Hopper, linebacker Gideon Lampron and defensive backs Cree Thomas, Boo Carter and Naeten Mitchell joining the mix.
Colorado’s staff looks different too, with Brennan Marion running the offense and Chris Marve in charge of the defense.
“The coaching staff, I keep saying this is the best staff I’ve ever had in my life and they are,” Sanders said. “That’s not to demean any of the previous coaches.
They were good also, but these guys are special and they have the gift of communication with these young men. I’m excited about all of the possibilities.
I really am.”
The outside noise has not been kind to Colorado. No Buffaloes were named to the preseason All-Big 12 team announced Monday, and multiple national publications have projected the program near the bottom of the 16-team league.
Sanders brushed that off.
“We don’t care about what people say,” he said. “People are always going to have an opinion.
If my kids and my coaches and our staff don’t understand who they are, we have a problem. They’re not going to allow you to identify who we are, and just because our guys were snubbed off a poll that’s probably not going to be consistent with the end of the season, we don’t give a darn.
“Our kids know who, what, when, where, and how they are, and they know what they got to do, and how they got to work. It just gives them that extra oomph inside of them, and I’m thankful and appreciative of that.”
Sanders said he feels that same edge himself as he heads into his fourth season in Boulder.
“Colorado has given me a tremendous opportunity that I’m so darn appreciative of, and I want to live up and surpass the expectations,” he said. “My younger self would be proud; would be proud that I was here last year fighting a battle called cancer, and now I’m here with full strength, full energy. I got that thing back, I got that swagger back, I got that dawg back, I got that charisma back.
“I cannot wait to get back on that sideline and do our thing. I can’t wait to get back to camp.”
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