Doesn’t Deion Sanders care about the CU Buffs offensive line?

CU head football coach Deion Sanders speaks during a press conference at the UCHealth Champions Center in Boulder, Colorado on Friday, August 4, 2023. (Photo by Heung Chang/The Denver Post)

boulder – psst! Look, my friend, don’t tell anyone but Deion Sanders, the only head football coach in UC history To host “Saturday Night Live” Only amateur head He released his own rap albumUnderneath all the shadows and booty, deep down, he’s just a nerd up front.

“Don’t think for a minute because he played cornerback and receiver in the NFL, that’s all he wants to know,” TCU linebacker and former Jackson State quarterback Willis Patrick assured me this week. “His main interest is the attacking line and the defence, because he knows the game is won in attack. He knows how damaging not having a good attacking line can do to a team.”

Patrick entered Froggie Land last winter from Jackson. Heck, he almost became a power-up himself, but more on that last part in a second. See, in 2021 Coach Prime’s Tigers gave up 36 sacks over 13 games, the most in the SWAC. Sanders response? Fixing his pocketbook, Prime has imported classmates like the 6-foot-4, 355-pound Patrick, a friendly Texan who was a Second Class All-American at Angelo State.

“When I got to Jackson, the offensive line before I got there wasn’t very good,” said the Horned Frogs blocker, who is expected to. Start with the right guard when they face the Buffs on Saturday at Amon G. Carter Stadium.

“That was the main focal point for him, finding the right attacking men who were so bad, and (he said): ‘We’re going to protect the midfielder.'” He paid a lot of attention to that… He knows the running game is important. So he wants to prove it. And he knows he needs the right business people to do it. He’s a great player in attack and defence.”

Last fall, with Patrick starting 11 games, Jackson State’s number of sacks allowed dropped from 36 to 23 — Biggest improvement in a single season in the league.

“Give[Chedear Sanders]a clean pocket, and there’ll be problems,” Coach Prime said of his son and QB1 earlier this week.

Don’t give him one, and we’ve seen that movie before. Look, nobody’s saying the chatter and worry about the Buffs’ Week 1 mayhem isn’t justified — the offensive line’s cohesiveness doesn’t subscribe to the plug-and-play, travel-team-and-win-now philosophy that directs traffic at Boulder. This kind of chemistry cannot be rushed. or forged.

Here’s the thing, though, Patrick’s response: You don’t think Dion didn’t rule out that part actually?

“He’s very detail-oriented,” he continued, quoting the frogs. “The little things matter so much to him. People don’t really see that side of him. They don’t know that side of him. He’s a winner, a proven winner for a reason. People think one thing about him and I say a lot of things that people think are misconceptions.

“He’s a great guy, kind, gentle, loving, and he’s just competitive and wants to win at all levels. He’s dedicated to winning. That’s a favorite saying: he’s a game-winner… So that’s one thing I can guarantee to all the fans out there in Boulder, The 11, whoever’s on the field, these guys are going to be guys who play hard and fight. He likes guys who play hard and they’ll play hard for 60 minutes. So I’m looking forward to them having a brave team this year, a team that plays hard this year.

Patrick probably knows the Buffs, or what’s next, better than anyone on the field on Saturday. to a point. This past Wednesday, the lineman broke, and his coaches had a study tape of eight different players from eight different schools.

Perhaps this will be CU’s secret weapon this fall: driving the other team’s graduate assistants to burnout and opposition to information overload.

“I didn’t have to tell them much about anything,” he said. “(The coaches) have done a great job… (CU) has talented players there, so we’re just trying to prepare as much as possible.”

Funny how fate works. Sanders interviewed – Good interviews, according to multiple accounts — for a TCU job that eventually went to Sonny Dykes. Dykes rotated CU into Folsom during the 2022 opener for both of them, and led the Frogs all the way to the CFP title game. (The less we talk about Georgia, the better.)

Sanders returned to Jackson last fall and had a 12-1 season. Meanwhile, the Buffs screwed up the joint, and you know the rest of the story.

Patrick ultimately wanted to finish his college eligibility closer to home, closer to family. But the guy was so ready to be a fan of the game last December that he found himself shopping for places to live around BoCo Tyler Brown, his old classmate.

“To be completely honest, it was hard for me in my first two weeks here at TCU to see all my boys out there together in Boulder,” Patrick recalled. “I felt like I was the only one who wasn’t there with them.

“But the guys here took me under their wings and it’s all like my family here (in Fort Worth).”

The former Tigers on the Buffs look like they’re family, too, despite Saturday’s struggles. Patrick even refers to Shedeur, CU’s new caller, as “my little brother,” and promises that No. 2 has the goods that will shock the world.