Deion Sanders is not getting past the Cormani McClain drama yet. When the Buffs thought the McClain storm had passed, it came back. It was not as forceful as before, but its effects still haunted Deion Sanders and Co. This time, the attack came from Georgia head coach Kirby Smart. During his recent podcast appearance with ON3, Kirby Smart might have taken a subtle jibe at Sanders following the allegations McClain has thrown at him.

Right from when he alleged them “to be playing for clicks” to him committing to Gators, all the shade McClain — and later other CU transfers — threw on Prime brought one thing to the forefront: the “cultural” loopholes in Colorado. Smart let the ON3 host know about his strategy to avoid such incidents. “The first question we ask is why did you go into the portal? And I sit back and listen. If it’s blank blame, all the coaches, all of them, I’m really not interested. Because that then would become me at the new place,” Smart said, pointing out programs dragged through the mud for having a “bad culture.”

Rather, the head coach of the expected No. 1 seed this CFB season laid out what he would do instead. “I want to hear them out and kind of hear what their reasoning is and when they have good reasoning for why they’re leaving, they fit kind of the the unselfish culture we try to promote,” Smart said, throwing indirect shade at Sanders while promoting the ‘unselfish culture’ of his program. However, is one statement from a CU recruit enough to shut the opinion down?

Does CU recruit defending Deion Sanders enough to shut Smart’s dig down?

As a direct response to McClain’s claim of Colorado “playing for the clicks,” CU recruit Bishop Thomas highlighted how he has gotten “used to” the camera-laden environment at Colorado. “Me, coming here, not used to cameras on my face. I was just being myself, man. Everything you see, that was just me. It was all raw,” Thomas shared during a podcast.

Well, the recruit did not deny McClain’s claims. Rather, he took pride in the level of exposure Colorado offered them, flipping the narrative on the Buffs’ “culture” being the problem. Despite all this, Deion Sanders and Co. have taken certain measures to fill in the loopholes at CU after these allegations, like banning phones in the cafeteria.

Does that mean the prevalent notion against Sanders and Co. of having a “selfish culture” will fade soon? While that seems unlikely, only the performance of the Colorado Buffaloes would be perfect to shut all of this down.