Deion Sanders Defended by Colorado's Silmon-Craig: Critics Are Crafting 'Bad Image'

Colorado safety Cam'Ron Silmon-Craig hit back at the criticism leveled at the program and head coach Deion Sanders by some players who transferred out last season.

Silmon-Craig said people are "tryna paint this bad image of my coach and the program."

On Monday, The Athletic's Max Olson listed off all of the players who exited Colorado after Sanders' arrival and interviewed some of the ex-Buffs in question, which elicited some candid responses.

Olson noted how "first-year coaches running off underperforming players are commonplace in college football," though the degree to which Sanders overhauled his roster was exceptional.

Chase Sowell, who transferred to East Carolina, told Olson a divide emerged between the players who stayed and those recruited by Sanders and his staff.

"We felt like it was us vs. them instead of all of us together," he said. "That's the best way I can put it. The new guys were going against the players that had already been there. It wasn't a good environment to be in. It wasn't a team environment."

There was the added pressure of having cameras following practices and team meetings for two different ventures: an Amazon documentary and Deion Sanders Jr.'s Well Off Media YouTube channel. Both Sowell and Xavier Smith, who transferred to Austin Peay, made a comparison to a reality television show.

Smith also took issue with what he thought was Sanders' cold treatment toward players he didn't rate that highly.

"He was destroying guys' confidence and belief in themselves," Smith said to Olson. "The way he did it, it could've been done with a little more compassion."

Sanders can point to plenty of positives from his first year.

The Hall of Fame cornerback brought more attention to Colorado that it has seen in years and perhaps ever. Even with a prolonged slide to the finish line, the Buffs improved by three wins. Quarterback Shedeur Sanders and two-way star Travis Hunter could both be first-round picks in the 2025 NFL draft.

One can't help but to wonder, however, whether some word of mouth is getting out about Colorado.

The Buffaloes sit just 80th in 247Sports' composite rankings for the 2024 recruiting class, and while they're sixth in the transfer portal team rankings, that's down from a first-place finish in 2023. Even attendance for the spring game fell significantly, though part of that was down to the rainy conditions in Boulder.

It's too early to say the Coach Prime experiment is approaching a pivotal moment because even with the advent of the transfer portal building up a team into a serious contender takes time. Another losing season will, on the other hand, lead more people to ask whether the plan is built on a shaky foundation.