“Do you believe now?” Deion Sanders asked the journalist at his post-game presser following his Colorado Buffalo’s upset victory over 17th-ranked TCU on Saturday. Sanders didn’t even give the journalist time to answer because, truth be told, he didn’t really care whether the journalist believed or not as, one by one, Sanders dismissed the journalists avowals of belief in Sanders’s latest turnaround.
Making believers out of the journalists who questioned his every move—leaving the cozy confines of Jackson State for the big-league pressures of college’s Football Bowl Subdivision, refreshing the team with 80 new players, starting his son Shedeur at quarterback—wasn’t going to put a single point on the scoreboard.
But calling out those on the outside of his program who didn’t believe…now that is going to put points on the board in many games this season.
Consider: what was the best thing that could have happened if all those journalists had expresses pre-season belief that FBS rookie coach Sanders could turn 1-11 Colorado into a good or even great team? Probably just additional pressure heaped on his players’ shoulders. Maybe a dismissive attitude toward Sanders’ accomplishment, what with all the great new players he had at his disposal?
Where is the motivation in that?
No, the only people Sanders wanted to believe in his newly assembled team of Colorado players were the newly assembled team of Colorado players. One of the greatest, if not the greatest, tools in the leader’s toolbox is the ability to convince his or her team that nobody believes in them but them, and that the team has a special message that can only be delivered by proving all the naysayers wrong. It’s the ancient law of the chip, the “us against the world” mindset that never ceases to pop up again and again as championship organizations are built.
Proving all the naysayers wrong is the primal emotion that brings the team together and makes the collective will greater than the sum of the individual parts. It brings up the image of our ancestors girding themselves for a serious go at a mastodon that seemed to look down upon them with scorn.
That’s the chemistry Sanders wanted to tap above all else. So, he walked around wearing his trademark “I Believe” sweatshirt. And in the locker room he took on the role of preacher, which is hardly a stretch, and began his sermon with a call-and-response with his players.
“I believe,” said Sanders matter-of-factly.
“I believe,” responded the players equally matter-of-factly.
He repeated this chant a few times and then began his brief sermon about belief, which he said was “an idea we hold with conviction and importance.” Then, he went on to tell his players and coaching staff about his belief in them and about their duty to believe in themselves. And they came out to the field and played like believers: Shedeur became the first Colorado quarterback to throw for more than 500 yards; two-way player Travis Hunter played 129 snaps and became the first Division I player in the past 20 seasons to have 100 receiving yards (he finished with 119 on 11 catches) and an interception in the same game. He also had three tackles and a pass breakup.
A lot of FSB heavy hitters start their seasons with cream puff opponents to enjoy a quick win and boost the confidence. TCU would have had some justification of feeling this way, given Colorado’s abysmal 2022 campaign. But now that Sanders has flipped that little narrative on its ear, his next challenge in the coming weeks and months will be to continue to summon forth that primal chip in his players as they, and not their opponents, become the ones with targets on their backs.
I have little doubt Coach Prime will be up to the task. I am not entirely unbiased in this regard as your friendly columnist is currently working on a book with Sanders that chronicles the leadership lessons from his amazing life and career. But all of us have seen Sanders do it before. At Jackson State, he took a football program that was a perennial loser in the Southwestern Athletic Conference and, in just three years, turned it into a two-time conference champion.
Again, a great leader attracts great people, so no one can say that Sanders wins with lesser players. But it takes a special leader to craft a message that pulls the deepest emotion and commitment from that talent and find ways to repackage that glorious “us versus them” mojo to keep the fire burning through successive stages of success.
To accomplish that, you have to do what Sanders has done, and plans to keep on doing: you have to “collect receipts” from fans, pundits and journalists who bought into the story of your improbable and unlikely success.
A lot of people were surprised by his win, but if you study who Sanders is and what he’s done, you find that Coach Prime was made for this moment. And this moment was made for this lesson about polishing your chip and always keeping your receipts.
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