High-level success in college football starts with high-caliber players, and first-year Colorado coach Deion Sanders is already winning in that all-important category. Sanders delivered for the Buffaloes in his first recruiting cycle despite a short turnaround, hauling in the nation's fifth-best transfer class and No. 21 overall class, according to 247Sports.
Seven of those players hail from the talent-rich state of Florida -- somewhere Sanders, who went to Florida State from North Fort Myers High School, is quite familiar with. Colorado is a long way from the Sunshine State, and Sanders explained his approach to recruiting the state with Patrick Peterson and Bryant McFadden on the All Things Covered podcast.
"I'm trying to introduce these young men to the other side of the country that they never thought about," said Sanders. "When you get out there, they say 'You got mountains with snow on it and it's not even cold?' Because when it's really snowing, it can't be so cold. It's really not that cold. Like, 30 [degrees] in Boulder is like hoodie weather.
"Once I get these Florida guys over that hump and they see it," he continued, "and the summers are unbelievable in Boulder."
Sanders' sales pitch to high school and transfer prospects generates from a mindset that he developed from his own time as a coveted recruit.
"Guys from the South like us, we didn't have the financial means to travel. We never traveled. So the furthest we went was Georgia. We aren't seasoned on the other side of the country. We never fathomed it. It wasn't our thing. We always thought it was too cold. I didn't own a jacket in high school. I remember going to visit the University of Georgia with no socks, no jacket."
Sanders' success on the recruiting trail during a very short timespan might have shocked the general public, but it wasn't a surprise to Sanders. His aggressive approach to recruiting not only in Florida, but across the country, is something that he set out do from the moment he made the move to Boulder.
"How would we be surprised about success? That means we really didn't expect success if we are surprised about success," Sanders said. "We expect success. We expect to go get that kid. You see how I got back and was on the phone? The only thing that can keep that kid from coming and signing with us is a bag."
Will more kids from Florida gravitate to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains? That remains to be seen, but four of the five players committed in Colorado's 2024 class are from the SEC footprint.
