Life is good for Deion Sanders right now. Coach Prime‘s Colorado Buffaloes sit 18th in the AP Top 25 poll with a 7-2 win-loss record — and an outside chance to win the Big 12 Conference, which would be good enough for the Buffaloes to nab a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff, completing one of the greatest program turnarounds this century.
At the same time, life is not good for Mike McCarthy and the Dallas Cowboys. A season that began with high hopes is falling apart; Dallas is 3-6 under head coach McCarthy, who is in the final year of his contract and trying to coach up a roster stricken by injury and infighting. As such, rumors continue to link the Cowboys to Sanders, who could be poised to return to the NFL, following his son Shedeur.
Paul Finebaum: Deion can work in Dallas
ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum seriously doubted that Sanders would be able to turn around Colorado‘s fortunes — but he has, and so Finebaum has reversed his stance on Coach Prime. In the face of the Buffs‘ success in 2024, Finebaum believes that Sanders is uniquely qualified to handle the pressures of the Cowboys’ head coaching position.
“Not only does he help the locker room, he might be the only person in America that (team owner) Jerry Jones will listen to,” Finebaum said Wednesday on an episode of “Get Up“. “And that’s the most important thing. Yes, (Jones) relies on his son (Stephen), but he would also look at Deion as his other son.”
Sanders was a key member of the Cowboys’ last Super Bowl-winning squad in 1995, and he played in Dallas through the 1999 season. He remains a beloved figure among Cowboys fans, many of whom are seeking an answer to the problems that have plagued their team this season. Finding a replacement for the lame duck coach McCarthy is just one item on the expanding “to-do” list.
But Finebaum, with tune changed, now thinks that Sanders can do more than just replace McCarthy as the leader of the locker room — he could change the entire culture, if Prime can be convinced to take the job, that is.
“We all know the glitz and the glamour of the most valuable franchise in sports. You put Deion in there, not only as the centerpiece of that, put him some great coaches around him, which obviously has to happen, and let Jerry pay attention to someone other than himself,” Finebaum said.
