The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Catching up with players cast aside by Deion Sanders
Revisiting Colorado’s record-setting exodus that ‘kind of felt like a reality TV show.’
Chase Sowell walked into the University of Colorado’s football facility on the Sunday after the 2023 spring game and saw more than a dozen teammates lined up against a wall. As each player entered the coach’s office and emerged within minutes enraged or in tears, Sowell, a second-year receiver, nervously pondered his fate.
“We knew it was going to happen, but we didn’t know it was going to happen that soon,” he said.
Deion Sanders, given his Power Five head coaching shot in December 2022 after three successful years at FCS member Jackson State, had promised to clean house. He vowed talented transfers were on the way to replace anyone unprepared to play for him. And less than 24 hours after the Buffaloes’ spring showcase, Sanders informed 20 scholarship players they were moving on.
“He didn’t sugarcoat it,” Sowell said. “He was telling me: ‘You’re coming off injury. I don’t think you will be one of the guys we need to start this year. We need guys that are going to be ready to play now.’”
Sanders did not need to use the word “cut.” Sowell understood it was time to enter the transfer portal and find a new home.
First-year coaches running off underperforming players are commonplace in college football. Dumping 20 in one day is not. But by the end of spring, 53 scholarship players had transferred out of the program.
Colorado’s unprecedented roster makeover yielded 87 newcomers — FBS schools have a limit of 85 scholarship players — and more fascination about what Sanders could bring to Boulder. The Buffaloes were a phenomenon when they stunned TCU in the opener and started the season 3-0. Then they lost eight of nine Pac-12 games. Win or lose, Sanders got people watching, including his former players.
Where did they go?
Colorado’s castoffs went off on new journeys across college football. Fifteen moved on to other Power Five programs, 22 ended up on Group of Five rosters, 11 went to FCS or Division II and two attended junior colleges. Three have not played since.
Quarterback Owen McCown arrived at Colorado in 2022 with a freshman class desperate to turn around a program that had eight losing seasons over the past decade. He started three games as a freshman during the 2022 season, when coach Karl Dorrell was fired after an 0-5 start.
“Going through that rough season
made us all close,” McCown said of his class. “And then, obviously, it all went away.”
Sanders walked into his first Colorado team meeting Dec. 4 and delivered a warning.
“I’m coming to restore, to replace, to reenergize some of you — all that are salvageable,” Sanders said. “I’m not going to lie. Everybody that’s sitting their butt in a seat ain’t going to have a seat when we get back.”
Sowell, a redshirt freshman from Houston, was unfazed.
“I think he was just being straight up: Prove to me that you can play,” Sowell said.
McCown skipped the team meeting. He was the third Colorado player to enter the transfer portal, going to UTSA, where he was a backup last fall and could start this season. Sowell stayed, but after his 2022 season ended early with a torn labrum that required surgery, it was tough to be at his best. He was cleared to practice a week into spring ball.
Every day felt like a tryout. Sowell thought he had to be perfect to gain approval. Cameras followed the team around for Sanders’ Amazon documentary series and his son’s Well Off Media YouTube channel.
“It kind of felt like a reality TV show,” Sowell said.
Knowing the score
It did not take long for returning Colorado players to figure out the narrative. Quarterback Shedeur
Sanders (the coach’s son), wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter and 19 more transfers were brought in for spring practice. They were the stars of the show.
“We felt like it was us vs. them instead of all of us together,” Sowell said. “That’s the best way I can put it. The new guys were going against the players that had already been there.
“It wasn’t a good environment to be in. It wasn’t a team environment.”
His freshman class was an inseparable group. The players lived on campus together, dined together, played pickup basketball together. They would return to the dorms at night and talk openly about their predicament: What do we do?
On the morning of April 23, their group text blew up. Players were called into exit meetings with Sanders and told they could not play at Colorado. One described the experience as going to see the Grim Reaper.
The next morning, Sowell said, those players were locked out of Colorado’s football facility. They could not grab their things from the locker room. They could not eat at the training table.
“When you’re gone, you’re gone,” he said.
Sowell wanted to go where he could play as many snaps as possible. He picked East Carolina, where he emerged as the Pirates’ No. 1 receiver, leading the team with 47 receptions for 622 yards
and a touchdown.
Jordyn Tyson picked Arizona State. Dylan Dixson chose Missouri State. Grant Page and Simeon Harris are at Utah State. Anthony Hankerson and Van Wells stuck it out last season, then left Colorado this offseason; they’re now at Oregon State.
Not one member of the 31-man signing class from 2022 remains at Colorado.
Bolting on their own
Jake Wiley did not get cut. But he wasn’t looking to stay.
An offensive tackle from Aurora, Colorado, he spent four years with the Buffaloes and stayed for the spring to finish his degree and to see if he fit with the new staff. On cut day, Wiley received an ominous text.
“In our O-line group chat, one of the offensive line coaches texted the group and said, ‘Good luck, fellas,’” Wiley said, “and then he just removed all of them. It said these five people were removed from the chat. We were like, ‘Huh? What happened?’”
Two days after they entered the portal, Wiley joined them. He said players who survived the cut still felt unwanted and expendable. He was one of seven returning starters who departed that spring, along with running back Deion Smith (who transferred to BYU), receiver Montana Lemonious-Craig (Arizona), defensive linemen Jalen Sami (Michigan State) and Na’im Rodman (Washington State), cornerback Nikko Reed (Oregon) and safety Tyrin Taylor (Memphis).
“Let me tell you this because this is something you may not know,” Sanders said last November on “The Dan Patrick Show.” “Maybe 20 kids we may have sat down with and said, ‘We may head in a different direction; I don’t know if this is going to work out.’ Everybody else quit. They quit. You can’t hold me responsible.”
Tough going after Colorado
Wiley was overwhelmed by the number of calls he received upon entering the portal and narrowed his list to UCLA, Duke and Purdue. He flew to Los Angeles to watch a spring practice and was told the Bruins needed a
tackle. Wiley loved the campus and liked staying in the Pac-12. It was an easy decision.
He did not learn he was moving to guard until the day before preseason camp. That is a lot of new technique to learn in addition to a new offensive scheme. Wiley rotated in at right guard in UCLA’s first four games, then saw his playing time drop off considerably.
This was a common issue for many ex-Buffs. Among the 37 transfers who departed after Sanders was hired and landed at FBS schools, 23 did not start a game last season. Three — running back Jayle Stacks, receiver Maurice Bell and cornerback Nigel Bethel Jr. — went unsigned and did not play last season. Bell now us a trainer and working in real estate in California.
Wiley reentered the portal in late November and chose Houston, where he is playing tackle. He said he always would be a Colorado alum and fan, and cannot help but marvel at the spectacle Sanders created.
“I never would’ve ever thought that Lil Wayne would be running the CU Buffs out of the tunnel,” Wiley said.
Bitterness wearing off
For the Colorado players Sanders did not want, those 53 transfers whose locations and lives changed over the past 12 months, the bitterness is beginning to wear off. After the online version of this article was published, CU players took to social media to defend their coach. Posts from Sanders and his quarterback son gained attention, as they seemingly mocked the players pushed out of the program, adding fire to a heated conversation about roster management in college football.
“My experience with Deion wasn’t one where I’m going to go bash him,” Sowell said. “There were things I agreed with that he did and things I didn’t agree with that he did. But that’s like any head coach. When he came in and made his decisions, I trusted God and I said everything happens for a reason.
“And I got to meet Deion Sanders, so I can’t really complain. I got to meet one of the best to ever do it.”