Since the day Deion Sanders took the Colorado job, he has utilized his own bespoke way of recruiting.
It has worked. But would the Buffaloes be in even better shape – like a run at a spot in the College Football Playoff – if Sanders ever went on recruiting visits?
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According to a story in USA Today, Sanders did zero in-home visits again this past recruiting cycle. Zero school visits.
His “I Ain’t Hard to Find” moniker is true, if you’re looking for him in Boulder. One certainly wouldn’t find him boarding a plane to recruit even though, as USA Today reported, he has a $200,000 budget from the school for private air travel. The plane has yet to be gassed up.
Bill Belichick has eight Super Bowl rings (he showed them off recently at the NFL Honors event on every finger but his thumbs) and the first-year North Carolina coach was on the road, usually in a suit and tie, up and down the East Coast in recent months. He seemed to be everywhere, at every top high school. He wasn't hard to find.
If anyone in college football can sit atop his throne and wave his hand for recruits to come visit, it would be Belichick, widely accepted as the greatest football coach of all time. He chose the road instead.
Former Alabama coach Nick Saban, widely accepted as the greatest college football coach of all time with seven national championships and a Crimson Tide dynasty that may never be replicated, didn’t traverse the country recruiting but hit important spots, closed on guys and famously did the Cupid Shuffle on a recruiting trip once.
When Clemson coach Dabo Swinney was closing on high four-star receiver Terrance Moore in the 2024 class, the two-time national champion pumped out 22 reps of 135 pounds on the bench press to impress the Tampa (Fla.) Catholic standout and stave him off from flipping.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart, also the owner of two national titles, is arguably the best head coach recruiter in the country who holds scavenger hunts during on-campus recruiting events and then traverses the country in search of elite players.
He’ll show up in a helicopter or drive around South Georgia stopping at numerous schools on one day – too many to even believe – and then head to some recruit’s basketball game at night and butter up the kid’s parents. His boundless energy on the recruiting trail is extraordinary and endless.
Sanders' recruiting approach is like a Las Vegas residency for musicians: If you want to see me, I'm not coming to your town, you're coming to mine.
When Smart was having a back-and-forth tiff with then-Florida coach Dan Mullen, the Georgia coach had one of the best quotes ever about recruiting and its massive impact on wins and losses.
“If you don’t recruit, there’s no coach out there that can out-coach recruiting,” Smart said. “I don’t care who you are. The best coach to ever play the game better be a good recruiter because no coaching is going to out-coach players. Anybody will tell you our defense is good because they have good players.
“So spending time on the phone, spending time with people at your house, spending time with people when they come to your campus, I’m not with my family when I’m doing that. My family sacrifices so that I can go and spend time with other peoples’ families so that we have good players. That’s 25 percent evaluation, that’s 50 percent recruiting and another 25 percent is going to be coaching but if you don’t recruit, you got no chance.”
Maybe Sanders has found the secret sauce.
After all, Colorado flipped five-star quarterback Julian Lewis from USC last recruiting cycle along with four-star offensive lineman Carde Smith. Four-star defensive end London Merritt turned down Ohio State to play for the Buffaloes. High four-star receiver Adrian Wilson flipped from Big 12 champ Arizona State to come to Boulder.
And that’s just a fraction of Colorado’s overall haul since Sanders does so much more work in the transfer portal. Tulsa receiver transfer Joseph Williams and Oklahoma defensive back transfer Makari Vickers lead the way but at least 16 transfers were added this cycle as well.
Sanders has quickly forged a turnaround in Boulder from 1-11 the season before he got there where Colorado was hardly competitive in many games to 4-8 in Year 1 and then 9-4 in Year 2.
But Colorado also had quarterback Shedeur Sanders and Heisman-winning two-way athlete Travis Hunter, both expected to be early first-round NFL Draft picks, and the Buffaloes didn’t make their conference championship game.
They lost big at Nebraska. They needed a miracle to beat Baylor at home. They got run by Kansas on a neutral field. And then BYU rocked them by 22 points in the bowl game.
Sanders has done an amazing job in just two seasons. He’s reignited a moribund program and it looks like he’s staying in Boulder after his sons have left to keep building the Buffaloes into a contender. He has a five-star quarterback in Lewis, who has star potential.
Maybe the whole game has changed with NIL and the transfer portal. Maybe hopscotching the country for recruits is antiquated especially with Sanders’ reputation and reach. But the other argument is that Sanders is not putting in the required effort to build a champion.
If it works for Belichick and Saban and Swinney and Smart – the guys with all the bling that matters – can Sanders do it a different way and win at the highest level?
Smart’s comments when he was bickering with Mullen still hold true.
“Just go look at the best teams out there,” Smart said. “They got good football players and that’s the reason I believe in recruiting and I believe you better always be recruiting, always be recruiting because if you’re not, somebody else is.”
