Why Matt Rhule Passed Deion Sanders

WHY MATT RHULE PASSED DEION SANDERS – September 9, 2024 — Two paths diverge on Interstate 80 as a driver heads east through the state of Nebraska. A driver can continue on the road they’re currently on, which carries them east toward Lincoln. Or they can turn south down Interstate 76, which takes them to Denver and its surrounding areas, including Boulder.

And those two roads perfectly encapsulate the different paths Colorado coach Deion Sanders and Nebraska coach Matt Rhule have taken to construct their programs. At this point, Nebraska and Colorado are 500 miles apart by road and five million miles apart in strategy.

And while it’s too soon to declare one an unbridled success and the other a failure, it’s clear after the teams’ meeting in Week 2, Nebraska’s approach is bearing more immediate fruit. The Cornhuskers slammed the Buffaloes 28-10 in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score. Nebraska was never in danger of losing to Colorado, even though it didn’t score in the second half.

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Losing to Nebraska, on its own, is no shame. Rhule is a program builder, and year two is usually when he makes his move. With seven very winnable games in the Big Ten left on the slate, a lot would have to go wrong for Nebraska to miss a bowl game.

But it’s how Colorado lost. The Buffaloes were never in the game. And Deion is now 2-9 in his past 11 games at Colorado, with one of those wins an escape against FCS power North Dakota State. This one is most galling for the Buffaloes, though, because Colorado won this game by 22 last year.

Wondering how and why Matt Rhule passed Deion Sanders? Let’s take a look.

Sanders Isn’t Recruiting Properly

To understand Colorado’s recruiting philosophy, we first need to understand Nebraska’s. For decades, Tom Osborne made himself a presence in the state, allowing anyone from a Nebraska high school to walk on at Nebraska if they wished. Rhule hasn’t gone that far — it’s no longer feasible in the era of roster limits — but he shows up. He makes visits to high schools around the state because he wants players growing up wanting to play for Nebraska.

Sanders doesn’t care about that. He hasn’t left Boulder to visit a recruit. He prefers the transfer portal anyway, where visits aren’t really a thing. Deion says he’s trying to save Colorado money by not using his recruiting budget, and he’s said that he didn’t care about visits as a player and doesn’t think today’s kids care either.

There are three big problems with that, and they’re all detrimental to building a program. First, some kids do care about that kind of thing. Deion says he’s never heard a kid say they chose a school because the coach came. I’ve never recruited a player, but I know kids definitely say that.

One example is current UAB basketball coach Andy Kennedy. When he was growing up, he decided that for him to consider a school, the coach had to first show some commitment by either coming to his home to meet him or coming to one of his games in person. Just because Deion didn’t want a visit doesn’t mean every kid thinks the same as he does.

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Second, even if kids don’t want a visit, parents and coaches do. When parents send their son to play college sports, they want to know he’s got support when things get hard. Visiting coaches is even more important, because high school coaches carry a lot of influence on their players. When college coaches don’t show up, high school coaches remember and subtly steer their players toward the coaches that do come. Over time, that can either help or hinder a college coach’s recruiting.

Third, and most glaring, you can’t find good offensive linemen in the portal. Sanders’ belief that every recruit is like him serves him well when looking for skill positions. Wide receivers and corners are naturally flashy players because of the nature of their positions. They’re often well-known, and it’s because of highlight catches and game-changing interceptions.

Offensive linemen aren’t like that at all. They tend to become well-known only when they screw up. They do the grunt work that lets the skill players shine, and you can’t win without them. And they are the least likely players to be attracted to Sanders’ glitz.

That’s why Kirby Smart, Matt Rhule, Steve Sarkisian and Nick Saban (before he retired) put in the work. They know that recruiting is not one-size-fits-all. To get the grunt guys, the glue guys, you have to do the work and show up. You have to prove you’ll be there for your guys for four to five years. And Deion doesn’t want to do it.

Sanders Keeps Prioritizing His Sons Over the Team

I love the atmosphere of college football. Even as the game changes, the traditions around it stay the same. Rivalry trophies, the band playing the fight song, fans jumping around or waving the wheat or flashing the Hook Em sign; they all make college football special.

For this game with Colorado, Matt Rhule and Nebraska did a very smart thing: they brought back a tradition of releasing balloons for Nebraska’s first score. The Huskers used to do this for every game. They can’t do this all the time because of helium shortages and environmental concerns, but saving it for big games keeps the tradition alive and bridges the past.

But Sanders doesn’t appear to care about traditions. And if a recent report is true, it’s fair to wonder if he’s only doing this for Shedeur’s bottom line.

According to Jake Shapiro of DenverSports.com, when Colorado scores a touchdown, the Colorado band is not allowed to play the school fight song if Shedeur was involved. Instead, the Folsom Field speakers play Shedeur’s rap single “Perfect Timing”. If this is accurate, it’s a major indictment of Deion. A touchdown is supposed to be a team effort, not a spotlight on one guy.

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What’s not alleged is Deion’s decision to fire offensive coordinator Sean Lewis last year. The Buffaloes were flying high on that side of the ball, in part because Lewis is an offensive genius who is used to working with few resources. At Kent State, Lewis won with what he had, which wasn’t a lot. He knew he had no offensive linemen but talented skill players, and he designed an offense that would see several sacks, but lots of big plays to make up for it.

Well, someone didn’t seem to like Shedeur getting blasted on the sack plays. And so Lewis was demoted, in favor of former NFL coach Pat Shurmur. The results are damning. Under Lewis, Colorado averaged 32.1 points per game. Under Shurmur, the Buffaloes haven’t hit that number once in six tries. And Shedeur still gets hit all the time; to steal a line from former NFL lineman Chris Hinton, changing coordinators wasn’t going to change the fact that Colorado’s still got nobody to block for him.

It gets worse. When Lewis left to coach San Diego State, he took quarterback recruit Danny O’Neil with him. That was supposed to be Shedeur’s successor. He’s now starting as a true freshman for the Aztecs, while Shurmur doesn’t have anyone coming in. And Deion’s response was to get into a war of words with Denver Post columnist Sean Keeler for pointing all of this out.

Deion’s Lack of Detail

Anyone who watched the game in Lincoln could have told you exactly why Colorado lost. Nebraska were monsters in the trenches and shoved the Buffaloes around all night. Anyone, that is, except Deion Sanders, who said he didn’t know why his team got manhandled.

That’s inexcusable. It’s doubly inexcusable because Nebraska did the exact same thing last year. The Huskers lost in Boulder last season because Rhule didn’t have a college-level quarterback on his roster, which led to four turnovers and short fields for Shedeur Sanders. He went out and recruited one in Dylan Raiola, and he went out of his way in pregame to say that Raiola just needed to remember he had “10 brothers” on the field to help him.

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In other words, Raiola didn’t need to win Nebraska the game; he just needed to not lose it. If he won it, great, but Rhule had other ways for the Huskers to win if not. Colorado needs Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter to win the game. If they don’t turn in dominant performances, the Buffaloes have no Plan B. And that’s because Deion hasn’t bothered to create one.

Colorado’s Quick-Fix Culture

Part of this is on Colorado. The Buffaloes are hanging on to their glory days of the 1990s, and they want the quick return to them without having to go through a painful rebuild. Say what you want about Nebraska and its so-far futile efforts to return to the Osborne days, but the Husker fan base is at least willing to be patient with its leaders. Since Osborne retired in 1997, Mike Riley is the only Nebraska coach who didn’t get at least four years to try to get things right.

Colorado is on its sixth coach since Gary Barnett was forced out in 2005. Only Dan Hawkins and Mike MacIntyre lasted past three seasons. The Buffaloes keep pursuing poor fits and then don’t give them proper support. With Sanders, Colorado saw the ultimate quick fix, ignoring that Sanders both had no ties to Colorado and had never beaten an FBS team and never faced a Power 5 team before coming to Boulder.

After once again failing to do its research, Colorado is getting burned. And it’s getting burned because Deion is at a school he doesn’t care about. At Jackson State, Deion cared about trying to build something. He had a mission at Jackson State to bring attention to the SWAC and build a program. He made mistakes, but he had a clear purpose.

At Colorado, his only purpose is his sons, and Travis Hunter because of how important Hunter was to his success at Jackson State. He does not care about this school and its future. And whether he stays, leaves on his own or leaves because CU tells him to, his actions are further setting back a once-proud program that remains lost in the wilderness.