The more Deion Sanders saw him­self as Nick Saban, the more Saban saw him­self on the golf course.

Col­lege foot­ball his­to­ry was writ­ten, ham­mer and chis­el, by con­trol freaks, America’s most beloved dic­ta­tors. The tails wag all the dogs now, and that’s got­ta dri­ve Saban cuck­oo for Cocoa Puffs.

ESPN, which used to hide behind giant cur­tains like the great and pow­er­ful Oz, pulling levers and scam­ming Emmys, has two hands on the sport’s steer­ing wheel and is about to dri­ve this pup­py to Crazy­town. TV execs redrew ver­ti­cal, log­i­cal, con­tigu­ous, sto­ried con­fer­ences into hor­i­zon­tal, bas­tardized, coast-to-coast, junior AFCs and NFCs, a sport where the sun nev­er sets. Prep super­stars want the mon­ey upfront. Every inmate in the game’s asy­lum expects a car and a room key.

Yet Coach Prime’s affec­tion for Saban, who announced his retire­ment from Alaba­ma foot­ball a few days back, is charm­ing and gen­uine, if occa­sion­al­ly delud­ed. The pub­lic nadir hit prob­a­bly three sum­mers ago. When a reporter dur­ing a Zoom call referred to Sanders, then at Jack­son State, by his first name, Coach Prime got all up in the scribe’s grill.

“You don’t call Nick Saban, ‘Nick,’” Sanders said. “Don’t call me, ‘Deion.’”

(When asked about this exchange after­ward, Saban quipped, “I respond to just about any­thing. I’ve been called just about every­thing … it’s not some­thing impor­tant to me.”)

Deion thinks he’s Nick. He’s not. A 4–8 coach who demands Saban space, Saban respect, Saban grav­i­tas, Saban access, and Saban syco­phancy doesn’t blow a 29-point half­time lead to Stan­ford at home. When win­ning doesn’t hap­pen, the goal­posts for what counts as “win­ning” get yanked from the turf and reseed­ed to fit the narrative.

But the best coach­es know best what they don’t. For all the lessons that Coach Prime cribbed from Saban and his Bama dynasty, there’s one Uncle Nick trade­mark Buffs fans should hope Sanders will pay more earnest heed going forward.

His coor­di­na­tors.

His play-callers. The guys who move the chess pieces on game day. The guys who should be mak­ing him look like the smartest guy in the room on Sat­ur­day night.

Saban’s Hall-of-Fame resume stands on its own, as do the man’s grid­iron bona fides. But it takes a vil­lage, even in Tuscaloosa.

And here were Saban’s offen­sive coor­di­na­tors with the Tide, in rough chrono­log­i­cal order: Major Apple­white, Jim McEl­wain, Doug Nuss­meier, Lane Kif­fin, Bri­an Daboll, Mike Lock­sley, Josh Gat­tis, Sark­isian again, Bill O’Brien, Tom­my Rees.

His defen­sive coor­di­na­tors, are also in rough order: Kevin Steele, Kir­by Smart, Jere­my Pruitt, Tosh Lupoi, Pete Gold­ing, Charles Kel­ly, Steele again.

Sanders’ mantra, and thus CU’s, is that enough Jim­mies and Joes from the trans­fer por­tal will make the Xs and Os imma­te­r­i­al. And that can work. To a point.

It works a heck of a lot bet­ter at the Pow­er 5 lev­el if you’ve got six or sev­en Travis Hunters, as Saban so often did, instead of the Buffs’ one.

Or 10 Jor­dan Seatons, each strong and hun­gry enough to push or sup­plant their beefy incum­bents, as opposed to CU’s one.

Or relent­less waves of Shedeur Sander­s­es, an NFL quar­ter­back pro­tect­ed by an NFL offen­sive line, throw­ing to NFL tar­gets, with a front-row seat to watch NFL defen­sive line­men and NFL cor­ner­backs pum­mel Van­der­bilt into tiny gold leaf flakes.

As long as The Deion Exper­i­ment calls Boul­der home, the Buffs are going to win the por­tal, win the recruit­ing game, win the rat­ings game and win the PR game, all land­slides in the margins.

Win­ning on the score­board will come down to the offen­sive line, some­thing CU faith­ful could’ve told Deion already, and how well those coor­di­na­tors win their respec­tive chess match­es once the Buffs are matched up against com­pa­ra­ble, if not supe­ri­or, tal­ent. Period.

Even as col­lege football’s stone tablets have been replaced by white­boards and dry-erase mark­ers, some ver­i­ties remain eter­nal. CU’s CFP dreams this fall will sail as far and as fast as Shedeur’s health, yes. But also by the mer­its of who ulti­mate­ly replaces Kel­ly, the Buffs’ con­vivial but plead­ing for­mer defen­sive coor­di­na­tor who resigned his post last month to return to the SEC. With the excep­tion of Bill Belichick, coach­ing trees usu­al­ly don’t lie. Saban, to his cred­it, gen­er­al­ly nailed that part, too.

Sure, the Prime “tree” now tech­ni­cal­ly includes new San Diego State coach Sean Lewis. But if even half the whis­pers about Lewis’ work­ing rela­tion­ship with the Sanders fam­i­ly are true, that par­tic­u­lar branch rot­ted from both sides. And the only thing Pat Shur­mur has in com­mon with Kif­fin is an NFL pink slip.

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