Colorado's Deion Sanders Says He Could Have Been 'More Hands-On' in 1st Season

Colorado football head coach and Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders said he "could have been a little more hands-on" when asked by ESPN's Stephen A. Smith what he could have done differently in his first season leading the Buffaloes (10:13 mark).

"The process of selection and the process of who you allow into your space into that locker room, on that staff, in your environment—it could have been more carefully selected. It could have been.

"Now, I had to go back to, 'OK, if it's going to be on me, it's going to be on me. It's going to be on me.'

"I'm making all these selections, I'm making sure I'm crossing my t's and dotting my i's. I'm making sure I'm hands on every darn thing from the uniforms to what transpires on the field, so I could have been a little more hands-on."

Colorado took the college football world by storm after a 3-0 start, which included a 45-42 win over defending national runner-up TCU, a 36-14 blowout over Nebraska and a 43-35 double overtime win over in-state rival CSU.

That run vaulted Colorado into the No. 19 spot in the Associated Press poll and set up a huge matchup with No. 10 Oregon.

Everything that could go wrong did from that point forward. Colorado lost 42-6 and proceeded to go just 1-8 in Pac-12 play. The Buffaloes finished last in the conference and 4-8 overall.

To the Buffaloes' credit, they did remain competitive for much of the conference slate, with six of their final seven losses coming by just one score. Colorado under Coach Prime also ultimately quadrupled its win total after taking over a team that went 1-11 in 2022.

Now he'll go back to the drawing board in year two in hopes of taking the next step for the program, which will be returning to the Big 12 after 13 years in the Pac-12.