Deion And Shedeur Sanders Double Down Following Backlash For Disparaging Former Colorado Football Player

Deion Sanders and his son, Shedeur, may be public enemies No. 1 and 2 right now, but they aren’t backing down. The father-son duo doubled down on their feelings toward former Colorado football players after being critiqued on social media.

The Athletic published a story on Monday (April 29) describing how Coach Prime handled certain players on the Colorado football team. One former player, Xavier Smith, claimed that he was brought to tears over the fact that the NFL legend never tried to get to know him and instead of being a compassionate coach, he “was destroying guys’ confidence and belief in themselves.”

Shedeur took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to defend his father and belittled Smith’s talent in the process. “Ion even remember him tbh,” he wrote. “Bro had to be very mid at best.” He opened the floodgates for other players to get involved.

Colorado wide receiver Kaleb Mathis shared footage of himself outperforming Xavier Smith during practice from last spring. Smith’s Austin Peay teammate Jaheim Ward defended him by reminding Mathis that he only had 38 receiving yards last season. This led to a podcast host sharing Ward’s career statistics, which are just 36 tackles over the last three seasons.

Coach Deion Sanders shared his reaction to the underwhelming stats, writing, “Lawd Jesus.” Ward decided to attack Sanders’ other son Shilo, posting his statistics and writing, “Damm it’s crazy I got more pass deflections [than] your son.”

Elsewhere, social media was not fond of Coach Prime talking down on a player, and several negative tweets were sent his way. He was not swayed though, even when someone pointed out that the Buffaloes had a 4-8 record last year and tried to insult his son. “He will be a top 5 pick,” Sanders wrote. “Where yo son going ? Lololol I got time today. Lololol.”

Despite the negativity during this offseason, nobody will forget the hype that the Colorado Buffaloes created early last season. They opened the year with a 45-42 victory over the No. 17 ranked TCU Horned Frogs, followed that up with a dominant 36-14 victory over the Nebraska Cornhuskers, and then secured a three-game win streak with a 43-35 victory over the Colorado State Rams in a double-overtime thriller.

Their fortunes came to a crushing end with a 42-6 loss against the Oregon Ducks, but they almost shocked the world the following week against the USC Trojans, only to lose 48-41. They got their fourth and final win against Arizona State, and went on a six-game losing streak to close the season.

Still, celebrities came from near and far to feel the newfound energy in Colorado. JAY-Z, Lil Wayne, The Rock, Offset, and many others made appearances at the games.