When the Colorado Buffaloes brought in Pro Football Hall of Fame player Deion Sanders to become the team’s next head coach, most assumed it would provide a boost to the team’s recruiting efforts. But Sanders and Colorado got some pretty bad news in that regard this week.
Missouri offensive lineman offensive lineman Talan Chandler had been committed to Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes since February, but this week, he changed his mind, flipping his commitment from Colorado to Missouri.
To be clear, Chandler is just one player and isn’t even ranked among the top 1,000 high school prospects in the 2024 high school recruiting class. But as college football analyst Bud Elliott points out, this follows an unfortunate pattern for Sanders and Colorado as the team tumbles down the recruiting rankings.
Solid pickup for Missouri.
Also, uh, Colorado’s recruiting class is now ranked behind Colorado STATE https://t.co/3anfIWxNrq pic.twitter.com/INpzukiBR1
— Bud Elliott (@BudElliott3) November 19, 2023
“Solid pickup for Missouri. Also, uh, Colorado’s recruiting class is now ranked behind Colorado STATE,” Elliott said in a post on X, the social media website that was formerly known as Twitter.
It’s certainly not a great turn of events for Sanders and his team, and the college football world had a lot to say about it on social media.
don't worry bro, we're getting a whole new OL in the portal bro https://t.co/mEgcL05SuN
— parker fleming (@statsowar) November 19, 2023
For the CU fans that were talking about how we can’t recruit, take a solid look https://t.co/TqLLB000N0
— Barstool Colorado State (@BarstoolCSU) November 20, 2023
Behind Colorado State?!? 🤔🤫 https://t.co/fHXfmiiAwq
— Kevin Kuhnen (@Kevinkuhnen) November 20, 2023
Prime maybe gonna learn that how you deal with losing is at least as important as how you deal with winning https://t.co/9VFxr1TtwU
— Fernet Bronco (@BusterBroncoEsq) November 19, 2023
(Colorado has the lowest rated recruiting class in the current PAC-12.) https://t.co/7PM2abSlQK
— Muhammad Alinked-in (@PBSImpulse9) November 20, 2023
getting Louie from the outlets this holiday season https://t.co/fTZjTT0ZVR
— maxwell (@maxwellklitzke) November 19, 2023
Deion changing the game. Gonna win with that knock off Louis https://t.co/ZMv5NA5D50
— Franchise (@bdiddyfranchise) November 19, 2023
I'm sure this will change and the transfer portal should help out but I never thought anytime in the Deion tenure would we be saying we were behind CSU or Utah in recruiting https://t.co/YAJRCXWa8H
— Jeremy Deischer (@roxbombers) November 19, 2023
Sanders has made use of the transfer portal to help bolster his roster and recruiting, but that historically has not been a sustainable strategy for college football teams. We’ll have to see how it works out for Sanders.
