'They gonna believe sooner or later': Inside Deion Sanders' monumental Colorado debut (2024)

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FORT WORTH, Texas — Maybe it was the heat, which soared to near triple digits. Maybe it was the left foot, which was nearly amputated, is missing two toes, is in constant pain and required a post-surgery boot until earlier in the week.

Or maybe it was the moment, which was Deion Sanders’ best to date as a coach, his Colorado Buffaloes springing a 45-42 upset as a 20-point underdog against last year’s national runner-up TCU.

Whatever it was, amid the celebration Saturday afternoon, Sanders stopped and bent over at the waist, putting his hands on his knees.

The four Texas Highway Patrol troopers, one uniformed University of Colorado police officer and the bodyguard that formed a forcefield around Sanders for much of the day did it again, making a tight circle blocking any cameras.

Sanders has been the talk of college football for the entirety of its offseason, with apologies to conference realignment moves that spelled the death of the Pac-12.

And in Week 1, Sanders and Colorado’s performance assured that the volume of the conversation will only grow and the interest only intensify after a victory that shocked almost everyone but those wearing black and gold on the field and sidelines Saturday.

“We’re gonna continuously be questioned because we do things that have never been done. And that makes people uncomfortable,” Sanders said. “When you see a confident Black man sitting up here and talking his talk, walking his walk, coaching 75 percent African Americans in a locker room, that’s kind of threatening. Oh, they don’t like that.

“But guess what, we’re gonna consistently do what we do because I’m here, and I ain’t going nowhere. I’m about to get comfortable in a minute. I’m about to get comfortable in a minute.”

TCU’s student section greeted Sanders’ arrival on the field almost two hours before the game with loud boos and jeers.

“Nice camera crew!” one student yelled.

Three separate YouTube channels chronicle the daily happenings of Colorado’s football program, and Saturday, a handful of camera operators wearing Amazon Prime-branded black “Coach Prime” shirts were in tow for a show documenting Sanders’ first season at Colorado.

As the Buffaloes took the field for stretches, Sanders made his way to each one, touching every player as he went by.

Sanders has leaned into “We comin’” as the official slogan of this program, but at Jackson State, his former school, it was “I believe.” Before his team began warmups, he leaned into the latter heavily.

“I believe! I believe!” Sanders shouted over and over, almost a dozen times, pausing for his players to repeat him and meet his volume.

It’s bled down from Sanders to his roster, especially his sons Shilo and Shedeur, who both had starring roles in Saturday’s win. Shedeur set a school record with 510 passing yards and four touchdowns. Shilo led the team with 10 tackles.

“They can’t f— with us!” yelled linebacker Sav’ell Smalls, a Washington transfer, as he exited the locker room with his teammates to take the field.

“It’s crazy because you gotta understand our coach,” Shedeur said. “Coach Prime, my dad, everywhere he went he was a winner. Every game, every opportunity, he took advantage of. A lot of y’all don’t have the same knowledge and experience he has. So how can y’all question what he’s saying? He’s been out there, he got a gold jacket, he played in Super Bowls. A lot of people haven’t? So I feel like now y’all understand what he’s saying is real.”

Sanders led a 13-play, 75-yard touchdown drive after the defense forced a three-and-out on TCU’s opening drive and provided the kind of start that made it easier for those on the sidelines who still needed to believe to do so.

Offensive coordinator Sean Lewis kept TCU’s pass rush at bay with a series of quick passes and throws to the perimeter to accentuate the speed, talent and ability of a deep receiving corps and mask deficiencies on an offensive line put together in one offseason. Deion praised the O-line’s play and scoffed at skepticism about its size.

By the second quarter, a Colorado staffer began following Sanders around with a stool, allowing him to sit for short stretches. In the second half, though, the staffer was gone.

Sanders said after the game his foot felt “not good,” but that he was “thankful that God gave me what I needed to finish.” Sanders had his big toe and second toe amputated in 2021 after clotting issues caused compression syndrome in his leg.

By halftime, Sanders was doing the same thing as anyone watching the game: admiring his two-way star, Travis Hunter, the nation’s No. 1 recruit Sanders flipped from Florida State on signing day in December 2021. Saturday, Hunter played 129 snaps, catching 11 passes for a team-high 119 yards. He intercepted a pass on the goal line and allowed just one catch.

“I don’t know how many plays he played, but we’re going to put a hot tub on the plane for him,” Sanders said.

Despite the high temps, Sanders spent the day in black pants and a white Colorado hoodie, eschewing a cowboy hat or any Prime gear for a white CU hat and signature sunglasses.

After the Buffaloes surrendered a touchdown with seven minutes to play and TCU took a 42-38 lead, defensive coordinator Charles Kelly ripped into the defense. Sanders walked over to him calmly and grabbed his arm.

Sanders motioned for the defense to huddle around him.

“Just one stop. Just one darn stop. That’s all we were preaching. I always had confidence. I knew as long as we had the ball, I knew Shedeur was gonna get us down the field,” Sanders said. “But we just needed a stop.”

After Shedeur fulfilled his part, Deion got his wish. Colorado’s defense forced TCU tight end Jared Wiley out of bounds short of the first-down line, and the Buffaloes took over.

Sanders knew. He raised his fist in the air, the victory assured.

Unlike many of his coaching peers, Sanders is rarely animated on the sidelines. Though he’s a consummate showman in front of the microphone, that side of him rarely shows up there.

But after getting the defensive stop, Sanders walked out onto the field and turned back toward his sideline and the TCU student section.

“What! What! Let’s go!” he screamed to no one in particular and everyone all at once.

A few select faces penetrated the force field around Sanders as he slowly made his way off the field.

Pro Football Hall of Famer Warren Sapp, who spent the week with the team in Boulder and was on the sidelines Saturday, embraced his friend and yelled in his ear.

“Believe! Believe!” he screamed.

Colorado athletic director Rick George embraced the coach who in one offseason turned his program from a laughingstock and the worst in the Power 5 into must-see TV.

Deion Sanders Jr. made his way over after filming much of the celebration and turned off the camera. He wrapped his arm around his dad’s waist, and they walked off the field together.

“They had to see that s—!” one support staffer yelled as he bounded up the ramp into the locker room. “Ain’t nobody talkin’! Talk that s—! Talk that s—!”

Sanders grabbed a bottle of water and disappeared into the locker room, emerging several minutes later with black Nike slide sandals and a lemon-lime Gatorade as he walked down the hall to the waiting press.

He started by thanking the Lord but stopped himself as the party in the locker room on the other side of a partition was too loud.

“Wonderful game. Wonderful beginning. Intriguing. Passionate. Purposeful. It was all of that,” Sanders said.

But much of Sanders’ time at the microphone was devoted to a victory lap, basking in being able to tell the world and a room full of media that he’d told them so, and mostly doing so sarcastically. In a results business, he finally had one to point to.

“Ain’t none of y’all thought we’d be sitting up here. You was supposed to be on the other side interviewing them and coming and asking me, ‘Well, what happened? You said this and you said that.’ Yeah. And now what? Now what? Everybody quiet now. Now what?”

Sanders acknowledged there were players in his locker room he didn’t think truly believed, but after Saturday, there aren’t anymore.

But he saved his biggest fireworks for ESPN’s Ed Werder, a longtime NFL reporter based in Dallas.

“What’s up, boss? Do you believe now?”

Werder continued to ask his question.

“Hold on. Hold on. Oh, no. Do you believe now? Huh? I read through that bull junk you wrote. I read through all that. I sifted through all that. Oh, no.”

“Can I ask my question?” Werder asked.

“Do you believe?”

“Believe what?” Werder asked.

“You don’t believe. You just answered it. You don’t believe. Next question.”

Werder, though, does most of his work on television, so outside of a retweet from March referring to Sanders as a “celebrity” coach, it’s unclear to what exactly Sanders took offense.

Still, the show goes on, and Sanders the showman insisted minutes later he’s not vindictive.

“I just like them to know that I know that you really ain’t with me, you really ain’t with us. You really don’t believe. You really don’t want to see me win. You don’t want to see me in victory or at peace and have joy. I know you don’t want to see that,” Sanders said.

“But I love you. It ain’t nothing different. Why would I expect something different? It was like that when I played, right? So, I’m just playing another game. I’m just off the field. I’m not on the field now. But I can affect what’s on the field, and I’m thankful for that. I really am.”

Sanders finished his time at the microphone and stood.

But before he turned the corner to walk back to his team’s locker room, he had one last message. He didn’t need a microphone to amplify the volume.

“They gonna believe sooner or later!” he yelled. “God is good.”

(Top photo: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)