Despite their mothers’ advice to the contrary, the plebes in the Grading The Week offices really do read your letters and emails.
And we’ve come to the understanding that when it comes to this department and its opinion of Deion Sanders as CU football coach, a good chunk of you would prefer the person typing this to, and we’re paraphrasing here, “get tied to one of Richard Branson’s rocket planes, then dropped from a very high distance without the aid of a parachute.”
Hmm. Maybe Mom was onto something.
Nevertheless, a gig’s a gig, and the braver souls among the GTW crew — that’s less than half, if we’re being honest — suggest we push on.
Alas, we’re probably just lining ourselves up to be kicked in the teeth by Ralphie VI, good girl that she is, for this one thought that’s been kicking around the cubicle for the last, oh, 10 months or so. Namely: Is Deion, in his heart of hearts, here to coach the Buffs? Or to coach his kids and let the rest of it just kind of happen?
We circle back at this not to rub salt in old wounds — we hear Prime’s camp ain’t pleased with the GTW’s band of smart alecks, and understandably — but in response to his coordinators finalized and announced by CU athletics on Friday.
Sanders promised NFL experience. He promised splashy names. He promised experienced hands with weighty resumes and oodles of gravitas.
Buffs fans dreamed of Bill Belichick, Warren Sapp, Ed Reed, Jim Leonhard, or even behind-the-scenes consultant Mike Zimmer, coming aboard to show the haters what was what.
They got more Pat Shurmur. And they got a young, if respected, safeties coach off an NFL staff who has never been a defensive coordinator before. Until now.
Coach Prime’s Coaching Hype Week — C.
Which circles back to GTW’s primary criticism of Coach Prime:
Our mamas taught us, when in doubt, to under-promise and over-deliver. CU football — and we’re talking just the football, not the ticket sales, merchandise and ancillary stuff — has been over-promising and under-delivering pretty consistently the last six months.
In Sanders’ version of events, that’s because he inherited a bull-junk roster that went 1-11 and needed to be purged from Folsom Field, cruelly or otherwise. And look — we can’t dispute the upgrades in speed, skill and athleticism. Prime’s son, Shedeur, when healthy, is arguably the best arm to sling for the Buffs in decades. Travis Hunter is a jaw-dropping, generational talent. Both are already rich. And about to get much, much richer.
But let’s just say neither Shurmur nor Robert Livingston, on paper, should knock CU fans’ socks off.
GTW’s editorial stance on Pencil Pat as an offensive coordinator and play-caller remains unchanged. But we also get it. He’s got loads of NFL mileage in his back pocket, loads of NFL scars. If you’re Shedeur, he’s probably as good a private get-me-ready-for-the-draft tutor as you’d find on the open market.
Livingston, who’s joining the Buffs from the Cincinnati Bengals as defensive coordinator, same deal. The GTW crew has pals in Cincy. We even dig Cincy chili (four-way with beans, hold the onions; Gold Star over Skyline; Camp Washington Chili and Pleasant Ridge Chili over everybody.) Our Ohio River sources speak highly of Livingston as a teacher, game-planner, and all-around dude.
On the other hand, Livingston has also never ran a collegiate defense. Like, ever. He leaves Cincy as a positional coach, albeit a well-regarded one. He hasn’t worked at the college level since 2011, when he was defensive quality control coach at Vanderbilt. Dude might scheme up a storm, by all accounts, and teach with the best of ’em. But he also hasn’t hit the recruiting trail in more than a decade.
And maybe that’s fine. Given the sometimes-comical gameday operation issues the Buffs defense weathered last year, given the NFL-level of quality on hand — Hunter, Shilo Sanders, Trevor Woods, Arizona State transfer B.J. Green rushing off the edge — maybe Livingston just needs to tighten up the ship, and the rest will take care of itself. But as Mom used to say, we’ll believe it when we see it.