Deion / Colorado

Because Renfrow is white and Moss is black? Well, how about Jerry Rice? He didn’t have super physical abilities like Moss but is the GOAT WR. Had he decided to go into coaching, he probably would have been a great position coach. How about someone like Jalen Hurts who had to kind of reinvent himself at QB? I would take him as a QB coach over most people.

Few things are absolute but players who had to have discipline, and work ethic, and smarts to be effective are usually going to be better coaches than those who were mostly just bigger, stronger, and faster than others.

So to recap-- 
 Bill Belichick when asked his about his first thoughts on a player : He is one of the smartest players I have ever met.  He is definitely the smartest WR I have ever coached. HE HAS TAUGHT ME MORE ABOUT WR PLAY THAN ANYONE. 

jg78- yeah but he is tall and fast... so he probably wouldn't be anygood if he went into coaching. 

Belichick- HE TAUGHT ME MORE ABOUT WR PLAY THAN ANYONE! 

jg78- Yeah..but he has a really good 40.. and can jump high- no thanks. 

I'm not arguing against Belichick's assessment, and Moss may be the smartest wide receiver ever, (and to be fair this may be a bit of me playing devil's advocate) but I am unsure if that alone would make him a good coach. 

I'm sure that Stephen Hawking was a lot smarter than my daughter's 7th grade science teacher, but I doubt Hawking would've done a better job of teaching her science class (and that has nothing to do with his disability, he's just the most famous contemporary genius I could think of right now). Point is: knowing something really well, and being able to teach/instruct/coach said things are two different skill sets.

Sure Belichick could learn from the genius Moss, because Bill is the eager student; ie the kid you could just assign bookwork to and they would still get an 'A'. But does Moss have the teaching/coaching ability to instruct a diverse group of players, and do so in a way that they correlate it and perform on the field? Maybe he did, maybe not, but I think knowledge & smarts themselves are just one of a handful of skills that make a good instructor. 

I feel you. I just like theories of knowledge and instruction and figured this was an opportunity to discuss

they were all the same dude, and his lackey.

About the question of great players not being good coaches: How many great players have gone into coaching in FOOTBALL recently?

I don’t think it’s so much that a great player can’t be a great coach but that it can be telling to look at “why” the player was great when determining how good a coach someone might be. Larry Bird and Peyton Manning are among the greatest ever in their sports, but they were also known for their mental game. Bird was a successful coach for a period of time, and I imagine Manning would be good too.

All else being equal, a player who was good or great because he was sharp mentally is likely to be a better coach than someone who was good or great because he was a physical freak.

Deion was a physical freak who faced few (if any) WR’s he couldn’t outrun in his career. He also played 20-30 years ago and pretty much just locked down one guy instead of executing complex cover schemes.

Do I think Deion is as X’s and O’s savvy as a Kirby Smart or Lincoln Riley or even the average P5 head coach? I doubt it. As a pure football coach, he’s probably going to be below average compared to other P5 coaches.

Fortunately for Deion, being a wizard of the chalk board isn’t that important to being a college head coach. Deion has a lot of charisma and star power and those are more important traits provided he has the leadership ability to keep the program on the road.

If I were a major college head coach at a program like Bama, Georgia, LSU, or Ohio State, would I hire Deion to be my OC or DC? No. If I were the AD at one of those schools, would I hire him to be HC? No. If I were the AD at Colorado, would I have hired Deion? Yes. That program is so bad that it’s worth the risk (there is no risk, really) to see if Deion is capable. John Doe coming from Fresno State isn’t going to do anything at Colorado. But Deion might.

I don’t think what made Deion Sanders a great football player is easily transferable to coaching and teaching as what made Jerry Rice a great football player.

Rice played a more technical position, had a legendary work ethic, great character, and likely a greater knowledge of the game. He is arguably the greatest NFL player of all time without being incredibly gifted physically.

I am not saying players can’t be both smart and physically gifted. I am just saying when looking at players to be coaches, I would look for guys who displayed the best intangibles. I’m not saying Deion was lacking in football acumen as a player, but I don’t think he was the “coach on the field” type either.


If you gave one coach 50 players and another coach 50 players of equal ability, who would you favor to win? No recruiting to get better players or assistants to handle all the technical coaching for you. You have to coach them up yourself. That’s what I mean by “pure coaching.”

I don’t think Deion would fare very well in this scenario against most other P5 coaches. Not because he’s black, stupid, flamboyant, danced in the end zone as player, or whatever else. I just don’t think he has the technical background of most of his peers. He played in a very different era (in a less technical role and position) and hasn’t coached a snap against P5 competition.

If Deion is successful, I think it will be because of his charisma and ability to recruit - not his technical knowledge of the game. I don’t think he would make a very good coordinator in a conference like the SEC. Nothing wrong with that. Dabo Swinney has made a living at Clemson in large part by being charismatic, recruiting well, and convincing the school to invest lots of money in facilities and assistants who are probably better technical coaches than he is. He probably doesn’t last there without the Chad Morris hire to revamp his offense - and now Garrett Riley to do the same thing.

It’s going to be interesting to see how things play out in Boulder this year. I think one challenge for Deion will be how resilient he is if the team takes a beating - and I think they will. Deion has plenty of money and his name is secure in the annals of football history even if the Colorado stint is an epic disaster and they lose every game 50-0. Will he stick with the program if he’s not wildly successful?

As players, do you really think Deion’s role was in any way comparable to Manning’s? A coach-on-the-field QB vs. a lockdown cover corner? You really don’t see my point here?

Deion in his prime probably had one of the most simplistic roles in NFL history. Manning had one of the most complex.


Because it’s a message board and it doesn’t matter what any of us says, but it’s still fun to speculate based on limited information.

A thought I had last night while at work- how many people weighing in on Deion, either pro or con, even saw Jackson State play last year? More than the ESPN hype machine documentary or highlights?

I saw probably parts of 3 or 4 games that added up to probably an entire game.

"Pure coaching" is about 10% of being a college head coach, though. The other 90% is recruiting, schmoozing donors, recruiting, dealing with BS from the athletic department, recruiting, defining and driving the culture of the program, building a staff, and recruiting.

Colorado and Jackson State did not hire Deion because they think he is Bill Belichick. They hired him to bring in more talented players than they would get otherwise and to put butts in seats. Deion was smart enough to go out and hire some coaches who look really good on paper. Will it work out for them? Who knows? As others have said in this thread, they will probably struggle a lot this year, and probably next year too, due to all their attrition, but if they are able to consistently bring in even the level of players he brought in to Jackson State, they should be more competitive under Tucker and Dorrell.

I said as much.


How’s that a great example? He took over a team at midseason that had fired its coach? What did you expect, a Super Bowl win?

The odds makers have the over/under set at 4.5 for Colorado wins. The Buffalos were a really bad 1-11 last year. So Vegas is thinking Sanders will do a decent job finding improvement. Sanders thinks they will do even better.

I have no clue and wouldn’t want to bet that line. But I’d take the over if it was set at 1.5, pretty comfortably.