Deion Sanders reacts to criticism from college football coach: "I don't know who he is"
Colorado football coach Deion Sanders has responded to the comments made by Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi, who was critical of how Sanders overhauled his roster by using the transfer portal this offseason, saying that the method was bad for college football coaches after the Buffaloes lost 70 players to the portal.
"What was his situation when he came to Pitt?" Sanders said to 247Sports.
"He had a different situation than me. He is not mad at me. He is mad at the situation in football now that allowed his best player to leave a year ago. He's not mad at me. He's using me to shoot bullets at another coach who he has an issue with. I don't know who he is. If he walked in here right now, I wouldn't know him."
That best player Sanders was referring to is likely Jordan Addison, the Biletnikoff Award winner as the best wide receiver in college football, who transferred from Pitt to USC before last season.
And that unnamed coach is likely Lincoln Riley, who recruited Addison away from Pittsburgh, and with whom Narduzzi had a number of private conversations, accusing the USC coach of potential tampering.
That experience probably didn't endear Narduzzi to the transfer portal in its current form, and Sanders believes it may have culminated in the remarks made by the Pitt coach about Colorado.
Related: Deion Sanders' boss reacts to Colorado roster purge
Narduzzi complained that Sanders' aggressive use of the portal didn't reflect the intent behind it, saying, "That's not the way it's meant to be," and that it wasn't designed to "overhaul your roster."
He added that didn't "know how many of those 70 [players that left Colorado] really wanted to leave or they were kicked in the butt to get out."
However the players got there, or left there, and whether it followed the perceived spirit of the transfer portal in either case, Colorado finished as the No. 1 team in our College Football HQ Transfer Team Rankings for the 2023 season.
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