Colorado’s coach is bringing in some top recruits, but hasn’t visited them off campus or used the private air transportation service provided for in his contract
In his first 14 months on the job as Colorado’s head football coach, Deion Sanders has brought in some of the top recruiting prospects in the nation, including offensive lineman Jordan Seaton and cornerback Cormani McClain.
Records obtained by USA TODAY Sports also show he didn’t even have to leave campus to make the deal with them or others.
The university confirmed that “Coach Prime” has had no off-campus contact with recruiting prospects since he was hired there in early December 2022.
Zero.
None.
“Coach Prime has not conducted any off-campus recruiting visits,” the school said in a Feb. 28 email.
That means no visits to recruiters’ homes or schools — which is usually a traditional staple of the college sports recruiting process.
By contrast, former Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh had 145 off-campus contacts with recruits or their family members from Dec. 1, 2022, until he left the NFL earlier this year, according to data obtained by USA TODAY Sports in public records requests filed with several universities.
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian has had 128 of those off-campus recruiting contacts since Dec. 1, 2022.
Former UCLA coach Chip Kelly had 55 of his own during that time, including seven home runs.
More coverage: Grandfather Prime? Sanders is going to be a grandfather
The Dec. 1, 2022 data covers the last two winter contact periods in the NCAA recruiting calendar, which typically limits head coaches from making off-campus recruiting contacts after the months of December and January.
In Sanders’ case, his employment contract with Colorado also gives him an annual budget of $200,000 to use a private air recruiting service called Wheels Up.
He didn’t use it.
“The football staff has not used this recruiting service since Coach Prime began his coaching tenure,” the school said in response to a records request this month.
But what exactly does it all mean?
Depends on the viewpoint.
How does that work for Deion Sanders?
Colorado did not return messages seeking comment from Sanders, who is on a national book tour this week before starting his second spring training season in Boulder on Monday.
He does things differently, as he showed when he overhauled Colorado’s roster to an unprecedented degree in 2023, when the Buffaloes went 4-8.
Sanders, 56, probably shouldn’t have hit the road to get hired, and has had physical mobility issues since 2021 due to blood clots in his legs and pain in his sole. He also didn’t recruit many high school players and instead mostly recruited transfer players—older players who had already moved out of their family homes and perhaps didn’t need to be wooed by a home visit from another prospective new coach.
The university did not say why Sanders did not use the private air travel service provided for in his contract. Asked who used him in track and field if not football, the school said the men’s basketball program used him in recruiting, as did the previous head football coach.
What are his recruiting results so far?
By several metrics, it’s a style that works for him. He built on the talent on the 2022 roster when the Buffaloes went 1-11. Sanders’ transfer recruiting class last year was ranked No. 1 in the nation. Its 2024 recruiting class is also No. 22 overall, including 24 transfer players and just seven high school players, according to 247Sports.
Virtually all of them were drawn to his fame and football history as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. They came to him, visited him on recruiting trips to Boulder.
“I’m not hard to find” is even one of his recruiting mottos, currently sold on Colorado t-shirts.
Sanders’ assistant coaches, meanwhile, have worked for him on the road and had more than 90 face-to-face conversations off campus with recruits or their family members during that time period, according to CU records.
But this approach is still completely different from the traditional model of head coaches traveling to meet with recruits and their families to convince them to sign with their teams.
What is the risk of this approach?
A departure from this traditional approach could become a focus for critics if the team’s fortunes take a turn for the worse. In Kelly’s case at UCLA, his record there (35-34) and perceived recruiting aversion led to murmurings among fans before he left to take an assistant coaching job at Ohio State.
Records provided by UCLA show he hasn’t logged as many contacts on the road as Harbaugh or Sarkisian, whose Texas records show him making multiple off-campus contacts per day during NCAA contact periods in December and January . For example, on Dec. 6, 2022, Sarkisian made 20 off-campus recruiting contacts, according to the records.
Kelly was still on the road and made contact for a total of 19 days during his contact periods from December 1, 2022. He made 46 contact at the recruits’ schools, seven at their homes and two when the contact was made during meals .
Why else do off-campus visits matter?
In general, it’s important to make in-home visits with recruits for two reasons, former coach Jackie Sherrill told USA TODAY Sports. One is to learn more about the player. The other is to potentially gain an edge over competitors.
“I would never offer a player (a scholarship) unless I went to the home and saw the recruit in the presence of his mother,” said Jackie Sherrill, the former head coach at Washington State, Pittsburgh, Texas A&M and Mississippi State. “If he wasn’t respectful to his mother, then I wouldn’t hire him. I signed a lot of players because mom would say you’re the first head coach to come to my house or you’re the only head coach to ever come to my house. I could tell more about a recruit’s character to his mother in five minutes than I could talking to all the coaches and teachers.”
Those who don’t take off-campus visits risk losing recruits to those who do.
Sherrill said he once had a Mississippi State player ask him, ‘Do you know why I came here? Because you’re the only coach who didn’t flinch when cockroaches were crawling on your legs” during his home visit.
What are the policies for off-campus visits?
A head football coach is generally limited to just one day of off-campus contact with a recruit or his family members per year, starting with the prospect’s junior year and including transfer recruits, according to the NCAA.
The assistant coaching staff has more leeway and often does the hard work of scouting talent on the road. Assistant coaches may also accompany head coaches on their off-campus visits. For example, Ohio State coach Ryan Day and his assistants did an in-home visit with Alabama safety Caleb Downs before he transferred to play with the Buckeyes.
In contrast, the rules are different for recruits who want to visit the campus of the college they are considering. They can usually make unlimited unofficial, unpaid campus visits and one paid official school visit.
Those restrictions are why schools have to log their coaches’ contact numbers outside of college, which USA TODAY Sports requested from various public schools. Those who have responded so far show a range and do not include Georgia, whose head coach, Kirby Smart, has become known for his extensive helicopter trips to recruiting trips.
In January 2023, Smart traveled by helicopter on eight-state recruiting tours for eight days and helped find more than $145,000 in expenses for the Kirby Copter, including other trips, according to the Athens Banner-Herald.
Are recruits even interested in home visits?
It varies, but other factors are a bigger part of the equation for recruits now, including the potential to earn from their names, images and likenesses (NIL). In one case, a wide receiver recruited from Calabasas, Calif., committed to play for Sanders at Colorado before reneging on his commitment and signing with Texas.
That recruit, Aaron Butler, told USA TODAY Sport that neither Sanders nor Sarkisian visited him in person at his home.
“I’m not really into it,” Butler said. “My receivers coach is the one who’s going to develop me.”
In Texas, it was Chris Jackson, a former NFL player who visited Butler in California. Before he changed his mind about Colorado, Butler said Sanders called and asked to speak with his parents, including his father, Rob-Davon, whose paths crossed with Sanders years ago with the Baltimore Ravens. The call went well, but Butler later said a communication breakdown caused him to change his mind about Colorado.
Another factor in home visits
Sometimes the home visit is for the parents. Former Colorado coach Bill McCartney knew this and used home visits to lure several top recruits from Southern California and Texas, eventually building the team into a national contender before his retirement 30 years ago. Sometimes he got into private discussions about his religious faith with a parent.
“In a single-parent household, the mother is the one who makes the decisions,” former Buffs defenseman Alfred Williams said in a 2015 documentary about McCartney that aired on ESPN. “So he hired my mother.”
McCartney explained it this way in the same film:
“What this mother wanted to hear is what every mother wants to hear – is that she knows she can trust you with her son.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: [email protected]
