“Don’t Like Him in Boulder”: Stephen A. Smith Fires Controversial Advice to Deion Sanders Under Paul Finebaum’s Influence

“He builds legacies, he doesn’t inherit them” and this has to be the most honest description of what Deion Sanders has accomplished with Colorado. Signing Travis Hunter, ESPN’s top-ranked college football player, and potentially acquiring Shedeur Sanders, the number one quarterback, is still masterstrokes. Since Deion took charge, he has increased Buffs viewership by 40%. He put Boulder on the map, but it looks like Stephen A. Smith disagrees.

Running hot on the trail of Paul Finebaum’s recent advice to “replace” Lincoln Riley with Deion Sanders, we now have Stephen A. Smith putting down his opinion. “Deion in Tinseltown, yes, that works. Cause I don’t like him in Boulder,” Smith mentioned. It’s hard to imagine that Deion Sanders would be willing to leave Colorado behind, even if his sons move to the NFL next year. That man has built the program from the ground up.

Even back on July 21st, Outkick Hot Mic agreed on this. “They’re relevant because the fans are watching games with Deion Sanders on the screen,” they said. Even Paul Finebaum’s initial claims that Deion Sanders and the Buffs are “irrelevant” fall quite short when we look at the numbers and viewership Colorado has managed to pull, even back in 2023 on a losing streak.

Even if we are to think that Deion Sanders leaves Colorado and moves to the Trojans, that same magic he did with the Buffs will never be replicated. Deion Sanders has carried his Coach Prime persona from Jackson State to Colorado and that becomes one of the major things that sets Colorado apart from other teams. Robert Griffin also agreed with this back on July 16th while sharing Paul Finebaum’s rant.

“One thing is for sure, though. Coach Prime is building something at Colorado,” Griffin said.

Even if Smith’s claims were directly influenced by Finebaum’s “replace Lincoln Riley with Deion Sanders” comment, we can say that Deion has too much at stake here in CU.

Deion Sanders aims to change the game!

“I don’t just want to play the game, I want to change the game,” is something Coach Prime had once said, and he has done exactly that. Deion was hired to resurrect a dead program and now, in its first year alone, Sanders took CU to a whole $280 million estimate. Brent Schrotenboer put it down perfectly, “increases in football ticket sales from last year ($20 million), increases in donations ($8 million), increases in other categories (at least $3 million), and the value of the increased media exposure that came with hiring a Pro Football Hall of Famer.”

You can criticize him all you want but you have to agree on the fact that a man can piss off so many in the college football scene, like Dan Lanning, Paul Finebaum, etc. Then he has some unique qualities, to him!

Call it negative publicity or positive. Devon still draws eyeballs on him and every team in the scene wants to beat the Buffs down to the ground. At the moment, certainly, Deion is not going to leave CU anytime soon. All we as fans need is to wait for the 2024 season to work in favor of the Buffs.