If only Bobby Bowden were still here then maybe he could talk some sense into Deion Sanders.
Better yet, maybe Bobby could talk some charm, warmth and class into the man who calls himself Coach Prime.
As a college football Hall-of-Famer at FSU and a pro football Hall-of-Famer who played for several NFL teams, Sanders certainly lived up to his self-chosen nickname of “Prime Time,” but as a bigtime college football coach it’s becoming increasingly clear that he is not ready for prime time.
And I’m not even necessarily talking about his ability to win games. It’s much too soon to determine whether Sanders has the coaching chops to turn around a moribund Colorado program that was 1-11 the year before he arrived and went 4-8 during his first season in 2023.
I’m mostly talking about his ability to recruit and relate to players, deal with the media and fans, charm the socks off of recruits and their parents and all of the other intangibles his college coach, Bobby Bowden, was so good at. I’ve often said that Bobby was the greatest ambassador in college football history — a kind, gracious and funny man who made everybody around him feel important. Deion is proving to be the exact opposite as a conceited, condescending, paranoid man who makes everybody around him feel like dirt.
The latest example came a few days ago at his preseason press conference in which Deion spent most of his time sparring with the media and making an absolute fool of himself.
He refused to answer questions, publicly insulted reporters who cover the team, even arrogantly and errantly tried to correct the verbiage of a reporter who was trying to ask him a softball question about his “bolstered” offensive line.
“What does ‘bolstered’ mean?” Sanders interrupted, suggesting “improved” was a better term “because I don’t know all that ‘bolstered’ stuff. I’ve never used that in a sentence. … Let’s say that. We improved our offensive line.”
The reporter attempted to then continue the question by asking him about how this new and “improved” offensive line will develop the “chemistry” that is imperative on any good O-line.
“What is chemistry?” Sanders retorted.
The reporter should have fired back: “What is a tool? What is a jerk? What is a jackass?”
All three of these unflattering names could be used to describe Coach Not Ready For Prime Time.
“A 4-8 coach gave a 3-9 news conference,” Denver Post columnist Sean Keeler, one of the writers dissed by Deion, wrote after the news conference. “This was the Deion Sanders we’d read about for years, disdain boiling like broth behind shades too cool for the room. … A cornered and condescending man. … Yelling at everyone. Yelling at no one.”
You’d think Deion, after the decades he spent in the sports spotlight, would realize that bigtime coaches must have skin tougher and thicker than that of a rhino. Deion has skin thinner and more delicate than a sheet of single-ply toilet paper. Can you imagine if oft-disparaged University of Florida coach Billy Napier dealt with criticism as petulantly as Deion does? Napier would have already been fired and would be working as an offensive analyst for FIU.
Yes, the media has written some not-so-flattering stories about Deion’s total lack of interest in high school recruiting, the purported bullying that goes on within his program and his son/player Shilo’s bankruptcy case in which lawyers are trying to free him from the $11 million in debt he owes for assaulting and injuring a man when he was 15 years old.
Welcome to the bigtime, Deion, where part of your $6 million annual salary is to diplomatically deal with criticism.
It’s utterly baffling how an athlete who played for the beloved Bowden turned into a coach with the affability of Urban Meyer?
Bobby had his share of media critics over the years, and I was occasionally one of them, but he always treated his antagonists the same way he treated his apologists. Bobby’s philosophy was always, as the old adage conveys: “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
“If somebody mistreats you, treat ’em good,” Bobby used to say. “That kills ’em.”
I firmly believe that Bobby won FSU’s first national title because of the way he treated people, including the national media. If you’ll remember, FSU lost a close game to fellow unbeaten Notre Dame near the end of the 1992 regular season. The loss was significant because it knocked the Seminoles out of the top spot in the rankings and put Notre Dame No. 1.
But when Notre Dame lost on a last-second field goal to a ranked Boston College team the following week, the Seminoles jumped the Irish in the polls (despite losing their head-to-head matchup the previous week), and they would go on to beat Nebraska in the national title game.
Many believe that because of Bobby’s friendly, approachable, positive demeanor with the press, it impacted voters and persuaded them to put FSU into the national title game.
As I wrote on the day Bobby died, one of my proudest moments as a journalist came in his final press conference after his final game — a Gator Bowl victory against West Virginia. Bobby was thanking the media for all of their coverage of him and his program over the years, including columnists like me who sometimes criticized him when he lost a big game or when one of his players got arrested or when he hung on too long as FSU’s head coach.
Bobby picked me out of a standing-room-only crowd and deadpanned: “Bianchi, even from you I’ve had fair treatment. … Bianchi wrote some of the toughest ones about me and I guarantee he’s written some of the best ones about me.”
Coach Bowden was revered.
Coach Prime is quickly becoming reviled.
Who would have ever thought all these years later that Deion Sanders would need Bobby Bowden’s coaching now more than ever.
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