Deion Sanders Praised by Alabama's Nick Saban: 'Tremendous Amount of Respect'

Deion Sanders has engineered an impressive turnaround at Colorado since his arrival as head coach, and he received praise from arguably the greatest college football coach of all time.

"I haven't been able to see (Colorado) a lot. I saw a little bit of the game last week against Colorado State, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for Deion Sanders," Alabama head coach Nick Saban told reporters Wednesday.

The Buffaloes are off to a 3-0 start this season with impressive wins over TCU and Nebraska, plus a resilient double-overtime victory over Colorado State this past weekend that saw them overcome an 11-point fourth-quarter deficit. It was just a year ago that the team finished with a 1-11 record, but Sanders wasted no time in changing the direction of the program and quickly turned Colorado into one of the most popular teams in college football.

"First, (Deion's) a great person and he's done a great job of marketing the program to create a lot of national interest, but I see their team playing well on the field," Saban continued. "They play with discipline, they do a good job of executing, they've been able to score points (and) playing decent on defense. So all those things, to me, are indicators that he's a really good coach and I've always thought that he's always been successful."

Saban's comments were in response to a question about what Sanders said about him during his appearance on Sunday's episode of 60 Minutes. When asked who the best coach in college football was, Sanders jokingly asked for a mirror to look at himself before expressing his admiration for Saban.

"I love and I adore and I respect and … every time I do a commercial with Coach Saban, it's a gift," Sanders said. "Just sitting in his presence and hearing him and throwing something else out there so I can hear his viewpoint on it. … I'm a student looking up at this wonderful teacher, saying, 'just throw me a crumb of what you know.'"

While Sanders is still hoping to learn, it's clear that he already knows what he's doing. Colorado has sold out every home game for the remainder of the season for the first time in program history.

The No. 19-ranked Buffaloes will look to make it 4-0 when they face No. 10 Oregon on Saturday.