Pro and College Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders will reportedly leave his current position as the head coach at Jackson State for the University of Colorado.
Sanders was reportedly offered the Colorado job last week, and according to a new ESPN report on Friday, he’s been planning his exit and recruiting players to his soon-to-be new stop in recent days.
According to ESPN, there’s an internal belief at Colorado that he will arrive on campus over the weekend, though the current regime has yet to be formally informed.
“They’re not doing a great job of hiding this,” a staff source told ESPN. “If he backs out of this deal, it would be a huge problem for Colorado.”
Sanders is currently 16-5 and in his third season at Jackson State, who is 11-0 in 2022. On Saturday at 4 p.m. Eastern, the Tigers will face the 7-4 Southern Jaguars in the SWAC Championship. In 2021, Sanders helped lead the program to their first Black College National Championship since 1996, and their fourth ever.
It also marked Sanders’ first conference title with the program.
Colorado finished its 2022 campaign a morbid 1-11, firing former head coach Karl Dorrell after their first five games, and had since been led by Mike Sanford Jr. in the interim.
Colorado has struggled to maintain competitive play since moving from the Big 12 to the Pac 12 before the 2011 season. Since then, they’ve appeared in two bowl games and have had one season of over five victories, which was back in 2016 under current FIU head coach Mike MacIntyre.