Tag: University of Colorado

Former Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer to join Deion Sanders’ staff at Colorado

The former Vikings head coach is back in the game at the college level

Former Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer hasn’t coached football since the Vikings fired him nearly a year ago. While there have been rumors of Zimmer getting back to coaching, nothing had been confirmed, at least not until Monday. Deion Sanders confirmed in an interview Monday that the former Vikings head coach would be joining his staff this upcoming season at the University of Colorado, although his role was not specified.

“Coach Zimmer’s coming, too, by the way. So another two head coaches. One in the NFL as well as collegiate. But not only that. Forget the titles — they know this game and they know kids and they’ve been capable of making tremendous decisions with the kids and the young men in mind. So that’s what I adore the most — understanding how to establish the relationships with these young men.”

Zimmer also served as an analyst for Sanders while he was at Jackson State, but it sounds as if this role may be bigger. Zimmer and Sanders’ relationship dates back to when both were together on the Dallas Cowboys when Zimmer was a defensive assistant, and Sanders was a star player.

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Colorado hires Deion Sanders as head football coach

It is Prime Time in Boulder as the Buffs hire Deion Sanders as head football coach

Prime Time has come to Bounder, Colorado.

The University of Colorado announced Saturday night Deion Sanders will be the Buffaloes’ 28th head football coach. Terms were not announced but the multi-year deal is expected to pay Sanders around $4.5 million to coach at the Pac-12 school.

“There were a number of highly qualified and impressive candidates interested in becoming the next head football coach at Colorado, but none of them had the pedigree, the knowledge and the ability to connect with student-athletes like Deion Sanders,” Athletic Director Rick George said.  “Not only will Coach Prime energize our fanbase, I’m confident that he will lead our program back to national prominence while leading a team of high quality and high character.”

The announcement came hours after Sanders coached Jackson State to victory over Southern in the SWAC Championship Game.

The victory was the 12th against 0 losses for Jackson State, which will play North Carolina Central in the Celebration Bowl on December 17.

Sanders, who is 27-5 at Jackson State told those players that he will coach the Celebration Bowl.

The celebration in Boulder has to be for bringing on the Pro Football Hall of Famer to a program that won one game — in overtime, no less — in 2022.

Karl Dorrell was fired after an 0-5 start and Mike Sanford finished the season as interim coach,  going 1-6.

What will be fascinating is how many Jackson State players Sanders brings with him to Boulder via the transfer portal.

His son, Shedeur, threw  4 touchdown passes in the win over Southern.

“Deion Sanders’ stature transcends sports, and his hiring elevates not only the football program but the university as a whole,” CU Boulder Chancellor Philip DiStefano said.  “I’m thankful Deion has chosen to join our Buffalo family and I applaud Rick George for a truly inspired choice.  This is an exciting new chapter in the long, storied history of Colorado football and I look forward to standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our students, supporters and fans to cheer on “Coach Prime” and our student-athletes next fall.”

The University of Colorado’s academic standards has created issues for previous coaches when it comes to accepting transfers.

The Denver Post addressed possible changes at the school when it came to accepting such players.

Several sources have told The Post that CU will be modifying its policies regarding transfer credits to make it easier to recruit players from the transfer portal, addressing an issue that has been a sticking point for current and former Buffs football coaches.

Under current university academic requirements, not every credit from every system carries over once the student-athlete is accepted in Boulder. This sometimes makes new student-athletes ineligible immediately and in academic limbo until the credits can be made up.

With Deion Sanders looming, Colorado Board of Regents skeds Sunday meeting

The University of Colorado Board of Regents has a rare Sunday meeting about the school’s athletic program

The Colorado Board of Regents announced Saturday it would meet on Sunday with the agenda being: a “Personnel matter at CU-Boulder — athletics.”

That would seem to translate into a discussion of what the Buffaloes plan offer Deion Sanders for their open head coaching position.

Sanders said this week he had been offered the position.

Per the Denver Post:

Multiple sources close to the negotiations told The Denver Post that CU is prepared to make Sanders the highest-paid football coach in school history to lure the Jackson State coach from FCS to the Pac-12.

Sanders spent Saturday coaching Jackson State over Southern in the SWAC Championship Game.

The FCS Jaguars are 12-0 and have a Celebration Bowl date on December 17 with North Carolina Central.

On the field after the game, Sanders announced: “We still have one more to go, and we will finish.”

The Post also mentions how Colorado could make itself more attractive to athletes.

Several sources have told The Post that CU will be modifying its policies regarding transfer credits to make it easier to recruit players from the transfer portal, addressing an issue that has been a sticking point for current and former Buffs football coaches.

Under current university academic requirements, not every credit from every system carries over once the student-athlete is accepted in Boulder. This sometimes makes new student-athletes ineligible immediately and in academic limbo until the credits can be made up.

The next coach will replace Karl Dorrell, who was fired in October after the Buffs got off to a 0-5 start. Dorrell’s buyout means CU will be paying him approximately $8.7 million.

Interim coach Mike Sanford went 1-6 with the lone victory in 2022 coming in overtime against Cal.

Deion Sanders says University of Colorado offered him job as head coach

Colorado has offered its head coaching job to Deion Sanders

Deion Sanders has done an incredible job at Jackson State.

The Tigers are undefeated in 2022 heading into the SWAC Championship Game against Southern on Saturday, and that has made “Prime Time” a hot candidate to be a head coach at other schools.

On Monday, Sanders confirmed that he has been offered the head coaching job at the University of Colorado.

Sanders has also been mentioned as a candidate for the University of South Florida opening.

Colorado had a brutal season and would be a total rebuild. The Buffaloes were 1-11, with their lone win being over Cal in overtime.

Karl Dorrell was fired after an 0-5 start and interim coach Mike Sanford finished it out 1-6.

Report: Cowboys icon Deion Sanders offered HC job at Colorado

Colorado finished 1-10 this year; the Hall of Famer is said to have “legitimate interest” in taking over after 3 seasons at Jackson State. | From @ToddBrock24f7

After bringing tiny Jackson State into the national college football spotlight, Coach Prime is suddenly in the running for a primetime Power Five gig.

Deion Sanders, the 55-year-old Hall of Famer who spent five key seasons as a member of the Dallas Cowboys during the tail end of their dynasty years and helped secure the club’s fifth and most recent Lombardi Trophy, has reportedly been offered the head coaching job at the University of Colorado and has “legitimate interest” in the job.

Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports first broke the story on Saturday.

Sanders took over the 4-8 football program at Jackson State, an HBCU that plays in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, in September 2020. After going 4-3 in an abbreviated COVID season, Sanders led the Tigers to an 11-2 record and a conference title in 2021, winning the Eddie Robinson Award as the top FCS coach along the way.

Last December, Jackson State secured the number one high school recruit in the country, improbably stealing the commitment of defensive back Travis Hunter Jr. away from Sanders’s own alma mater of Florida State and other powerhouse programs.

Jackson State finished the 2022 regular season with an 11-0 mark, the first undefeated season in school history. The conference championship is still to be played.

Earlier in the fall, Sanders was mentioned by many observers as a possible candidate to take over at either Georgia Tech or Arizona State after those schools relieved head coaches of their duties midseason.

Sanders’s son Shedeur is the quarterback at Jackson State; it’s been speculated that if Deion were to take a coaching job elsewhere, Shedeur- a sophomore- could follow.

Colorado went 1-10 in the 2022 season to finish at the bottom of the Pac-12 standings. The school fired Karl Dorrell as head coach in early October after an 0-5 start; offensive coordinator Mike Sanford Jr. has been serving as interim coach since then.

The Buffaloes have finished below .500 in 16 of the last 17 seasons.

Feldman reported Saturday: “I’m told if [Sanders] can go there- and there are people at CU who are optimistic- he would make this program nationally relevant for the first time in a long, long time.”

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Former Jets assistant Karl Dorrell named University of Colorado head coach

Karl Dorrell, who coached the Jets wide receivers from 2015-18 was officially announced as the next head coach of Colorado on Sunday.

The University of Colorado officially hire former Jets assistant coach Karl Dorrell as its next head coach on Sunday.

Dorrell will get a five-year, $18 million deal, which is pending approval from Colorado’s Board of Regents, according to a statement released by the school. He will succeed Mel Tucker, who left Colorado  to replace Mark Dantonio at Michigan State. Dantonio resigned a day before National Signing Day.

Dorrell has ties to the Jets, as he coached the team’s wide receivers from 2015-18 as a member of Todd Bowles’ staff. In 2015, Dorrell oversaw a wide receiver room that included the elite duo of Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker. Marshall and Decker both had 1,000-yard seasons, combining for 26 touchdowns and 189 catches.

Dorrell is a former University of Colorado assistant, too. He was the program’s wide receivers coach in 1992 and 1993 and returned to be the offensive coordinator from 1995-98. Now, Dorrell is making his third and presumably final stop in Boulder.

He returns to the Pac-12 after being the head coach at UCLA from 2003-07. There, Dorrell compiled a 35-27 record in five seasons. His teams went to four bowl games.

As a coach, Dorrell has also made college stops at UCF, Northern Arizona, Arizona State, Washington and Vanderbilt. In his most recent college coaching gig as Vanderbilt’s offensive coordinator, Dorrell was fired after just one season, which lead him back to the NFL.

Most recently, Dorrell was the Dolphins assistant head coach and wide receivers coach. He was hired by Brian Flores after the Jets elected to part ways with Bowles and his entire staff.

Chiefs OC Eric Bieniemy turns down Colorado HC job

Bieniemy will officially be staying with the Kansas City Chiefs for the 2020 NFL season.

The Kansas City Chiefs won’t have to conduct a late search for a new offensive coordinator.

After a few weeks of subtle courting, Chiefs OC Eric Bieniemy has officially told the University of Colorado that he is not interested in becoming their head coach. Bieniemy’s decision was first reported by Mike Klis of KUSA and has since been confirmed by Yahoo Sports and ESPN. While Bieniemy never took a formal interview with Colorado officials, it was clear that he was among their top choices.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter noted that Bieniemy felt his situation in Kansas City was too good to leave. He’ll likely be a candidate for head coaching vacancies in the NFL following the 2020 season.

Previous reports tell us that Bieniemy did his background work on the Colorado position. It’s his alma mater and he has previous assistant coaching experience at the organization. In a different situation, it’d likely be the perfect fit.

At the end of the day, this was an easy choice for Bieniemy.  He’ll continue biding his time for an NFL head coaching job while working alongside one of the greatest head coaches in NFL history and one of the most prolific young quarterbacks the game has ever seen. That type of experience will go a lot further than any head coaching opportunity in the NCAA.

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Chiefs OC Eric Bieniemy could be considered for University of Colorado head coach vacancy

Bieniemy played college football and coached at the University of Colorado in the past, could he become a head coach at the college level?

The University of Colorado suddenly has a head coaching vacancy after former head coach Mel Tucker left the program to become the head coach for Michigan State. It’s extremely late in the process, with recruiting classes already composed and coaches entrenched in their jobs. Colorado will have an exceptionally difficult job, going out and hiring a coach at this point. However, there’s at least one coach with ties to the university that seems like a logical replacement.

That coach, of course, is Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieneimy. Bieniemy played for the Buffaloes from 1987-90 and was a standout. He has also been the running backs coach and offensive coordinator for the university before separate stints in the NFL.

Everyone around the league is making the connection from Colorado to Bieniemy and most expect them to at least reach out and gauge his interest.

After two rounds of no luck in the NFL head coaching carousel, could Bienemy leave to be a head coach in college football? It seems unlikely that— after winning a Super Bowl — Bieniemy would leave the NFL for the college coaching ranks. In the past, being a member of Andy Reid’s staff practically guarantees a head coaching opportunity. So far, Bieniemy has been the exception to that rule. He took interviews with five or six teams over the past two seasons but to no avail.

The question we should all be asking is this: Has Bieniemy’s patience with the NFL hiring process worn thin? Perhaps he’ll feel that he has a better chance to become a head coach in the NFL if he can prove that he can do it successfully at the collegiate level.

Working in the shadow of Reid without being a play-caller hasn’t done him any favors so far. At the same time, Bieniemy is in the prime position to be a head coaching candidate in the NFL again in 2021. Would that change if he went to Colorado this year? Another thing to consider is that he won’t be working with the best quarterback in all of football in any place but Kansas City. Ultimately, if Colorado does reach out to Bieniemy, he’ll be faced with a difficult decision that could decide his football future.