Deion Sanders Rips Players for 'NIL State of Mind,' Emphasizes Education

Coach Prime emphasizes importance of effort on and off the field for his Colorado players

Coach Prime is an infectious speaker. Very few have the charisma to motivate, inspire, and challenge young men the way that the second year Colorado head coach does. After receiving negative feedback from professors regarding the academic effort of certain Buffalo football players, Sanders did not delegate to other members of Colorado staff to handle the academic performance of his athletes, he tackled it head on.

Claiming that a "NIL State of Mind" is at least partially responsible for the lack of effort academic effort from some of his players, Coach Prime took this hiccup as an opportunity to impart a bigger message to his team about decision making, preparing for the future, and the mental side of the game.

After receiving the negative academic reports, Sanders compiled the messages from the professors into a presentation for everyone to see. During the review of each professors statement Coach Prime made sure to ask one simple question: does this athlete have any draft grades? For all highlighted in the conference, that answer was no. Sanders delivered a sobering but necessary reminder that "90-95% of your roster aint going pro", emphasising to those athletes who have shrugged in-class responsibility, a professional career as a football player is unlikely, and the opportunities in front of them in the classroom are just as important, if not more important, than their immediate NIL compensation.

While well funded NIL operations have helped pave the way for some of the recruiting success for Coach Sanders at Colorado, he has not been shy in his criticism of the NIL collective system that has created a pay-for-play regime in college sports; the recent academic reports only serve to add ammunition to his stance: “we, in this new collective and NIL state of mind, we’ve got youngsters that are all in on one side of the game." Sander, like many who criticize the NIL collective regime find that the obsession with payment and influencer obligations serve to distract many athletes from the education that is part and parcel of being a student athlete.

Sanders made a call to college football coaches around the country: "Coaches, we’ve got to emphasize education. We’ve got to emphasize life. We’ve got to emphasize the next step." With immediate compensation by way of NIL in front of so many athletes it is understandable that many will be enticed to cash in during this short but potentially highly lucrative part of their career. However, as the adults in the room, Sanders believes that coaches have an obligation to the lion share of players who won't turn pro to guide them to focus on the educational opportunities that can develop skills for them to leverage for the rest of their adult lives: “today was not wonderful, but I’ll be darned if I allow these kids to get out of here without something.”