$54 Million Coach Plummets in Latest Big 12 Rankings After Disappointing Season

Colorado's Deion Sanders arrived in Boulder as the loudest hire in college football, then delivered a nine-win season and a $54 million payday. Now the ground has shifted.

CBS Sports slotted Coach Prime at No. 13 out of 16 Big 12 coaches for 2026, and no coach in the Power Four saw his reputation fall harder over the past year. The gap between what Sanders is paid and what the Buffaloes produced in 2025 has become the story in Boulder.

Deion Sanders drops to No. 13 in the Big 12 coach rankings

CBS Sports placed Sanders 13th among the conference's 16 head coaches heading into 2026, with a national rank of No. 60. That is a fall of six spots inside the Big 12 and 27 spots nationally, tied for the steepest one-year decline since Herm Edwards slid 34 spots in 2022. No Power Four coach dropped further than Sanders after last season.

What makes the number sting is the direction it moved. One year earlier, Sanders was the biggest riser in the Power Four, climbing 28 spots after a nine-win 2024 campaign and a top-25 finish. The 55-spot swing in two years captures a tenure that has been all peaks and valleys with little steady ground in between.

Sanders signed a five-year, $54 million extension in March 2025, a deal averaging $10.8 million per year that made him one of the 10 highest-paid coaches in the country. He earns more than every coach ranked above him on the CBS list. Kalani Sitake at No. 1, Willie Fritz at No. 2 and Joey McGuire at No. 3 all won more games in 2025 and all cost their schools less.

Sanders has not hidden from the criticism. He spent much of his Big 12 Media Days appearance pushing back at the doubt. "It's already turned," he said of the program's direction. "You just ain't seen the fruit. It's already there."

Asked about expectations for 2026, he was blunt. "Oh, we better win," Sanders said. "That's going to be the surprise. That's the surprise. We better win. We're going to win. I love what I got. I love what I see."

Colorado slides back toward where Deion Sanders found it

The 2024 highs came with Travis Hunter winning the Heisman Trophy and Shedeur Sanders running the offense. Both are gone to the NFL, and the version of Colorado left behind looks a lot like the program that existed before Coach Prime showed up.

The Buffaloes went 3-9 in 2025 and 1-8 in Big 12 play, losing five straight to close the season. Colorado finished No. 112 nationally in total offense and No. 121 in total defense. Sanders admitted the team got its "butts kicked" and accepted some blame, pointing to a bladder cancer diagnosis that kept him away from the program from May until training camp and left him short of his best self during the recovery.

The quarterback carousel told the season's story. Kaidon Salter opened as the starter and struggled, freshman Julian Lewis was not ready, and Ryan Staub also saw the field without steadying the offense. Colorado ranked 95th in passing and threw 11 interceptions.

Colorado quarterback Julian Lewis (10) is looking to bounce back with the Buffaloes after a disappointing 3-9 season in 2025. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The recruiting picture underlines the slide. Colorado's 2026 high school class ranked No. 75 nationally per Rivals, a drop of 40 spots from the 2025 group and dead last in the Big 12, behind even Oklahoma State, a program that had not won a conference game in more than two years.

Sanders leans on the transfer portal by design, and the Buffaloes did land a portal class ranked inside the top 20 by multiple outlets, giving them a path to reload. But the high school number matters because it measures a foundation, and Colorado's is thin.

When Sanders took the job in December 2022, he inherited a team that had won one game the year before. Strip away the Hunter and Shedeur season, and the record in Boulder reads much closer to the program he was hired to fix. The 2026 season, with Lewis expected to take over and a new offensive coordinator in Brennan Marion, is the test of whether 2024 was the plan or the exception.

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