Rick George hired Coach Prime to raise the CU football program from the dead. Friday, they confirmed what we already knew — the Buffs cannot live without him.
Deion Sanders agreed to a revised five-year, $54 million contract through 2029 that makes him the highest-paid coach in CU football history — by a wide margin.
This deal says two things: CU remains serious about football, and while we all should be uncomfortable giving any coach this type of power, this is the best-case scenario for the school.
Coach Prime will continue to dangle the keys to the athletic department around his neck next to his gold whistle.
George, the school’s athletic director, had no choice. He risked his career two years ago by hiring Sanders with money he did not have. Had George played hardball and lost Sanders, CU would have stopped selling Coach Prime sweatshirts and started starring in infomercials for doormats.
And if everyone involved is being honest — even his staunchest critics — Sanders has delivered in every way imaginable. He inherited a program which had lost 11 of its previous 12 games and featured talent befitting a club team.
From the second Coach Prime walked onto the Boulder campus, he made CU, once a national power, relevant.
Since when has CU landed the best coach available in terms of attention, recruiting, and revenue?
Never is the word that comes to mind.
Bill McCartney turned out that way, but nobody knew who he was when he arrived at Folsom Field. If George had played it safe and hired Bronco Mendenhall, the alums would have had to Google him.
When it comes to Sanders, Google was invented because of celebrities like him.
Coach Prime made CU football his brand. And that attracts recruits, turns former Hall of Famers into assistant coaches and makes the Buffs impossible to ignore. He is also directly responsible for bringing in Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter and first-round quarterback Shedeur Sanders.
It is easy to justify a $10 million salary — ranking him among the top 10 in the sport — for what he has accomplished in two seasons. In 2024, CU’s home games produced $93.9 million in direct impact to Boulder, according to the school. Factor in the 18% increase in out-of-state applications and the team’s highest GPA in program history last fall semester, and this was an easy decision.
The question wasn’t whether CU and George wanted Sanders, but whether he wanted them. He flirted with NFL jobs this offseason. The Cowboys confirmed conversations regarding their vacancy. And there was some dot connecting about whether Sanders would angle for the Raiders job, giving him a chance to draft and continue coaching his son Shedeur.
From the day George hired Sanders, he wanted to extend him. This deal suggests he will be here for a few more years, given the buyout structure of $12 million in 2025 and $10 million in 2026. Any SEC or Big Ten powerhouse could easily pay this, but the number suggests Sanders, if not establishing roots, has tethered himself to CU.
And why wouldn’t he? What other school would give him this much authority and autonomy?
Sanders changed the college paradigm, eschewing home visits in recruiting while leaning heavily on the transfer portal. He landed top high school players in quarterback Julian Lewis and left tackle Jordan Seaton.
He can also choose which media members he deals with, while controlling his narrative through Deion Sanders Jr.’s popular Well Off Media YouTube channel.
He has burned through coaches, but struck gold with defensive coordinator Robert Livingston. And the presence of Warren Sapp, Marshall Faulk and Domata Peko gives him assistants players trust to help them reach the NFL.
Sanders took a football program in the witness protection program and made it must-see TV. He boasts a 13-12 record at CU, guiding the Buffs to within a tiebreaker of winning the Big 12 title outright, while earning a berth to the Alamo Bowl.
Anyone who knows anything about the last two decades of CU football understands why this qualifies as mind-numbing success.
Indiana’s Curt Cignetti offered a blueprint for a new deal for Sanders. He inflated his salary from $4.5 million to $8 million a few months ago. Sanders must have laughed when he read my suggestion of $8 million a year in January. He was aiming much higher. He spiked to $10 million in 2025 — and the updated contract doubles his supplemental salary for fundraising activities, public relations and promotions.
For both parties, this is a win. Sanders had all the leverage, and now CU has a valuable chip in the ever-changing sports landscape. It is not hard to see college football dividing into two conferences in the future — the sport’s version of the NFL’s AFC and NFC.
The conference and university presidents who make decisions on who is included are heavily influenced by TV ratings. And no one attracts eyeballs like Coach Prime.
He is bigger than a program. He is a lifeline. A connection to everything that matters in 2025 and beyond.
Given its situation, CU has its best coach since its greatest coach, and George knew better than to even consider trying to find someone else like him.
