If Deion Sanders is one thing, he’s an agent of change.

He’s a difference maker, a seismic fault. Yes, one with plenty of faults, but one who undeniably moves the ground beneath him.

He is an agent of change, but he is also a singular force. There really is no comparison to what he did at Jackson State and what he is doing now at Colorado. It just feels like an entirely new thing, from the bravado to the roster reconstruction to his own budding media brand. We can throw away any preconceived notions about what is good and what is possible and just focus on the change itself.

But here’s the thing: The change in Boulder isn’t over, and the Buffaloes team that will take the field in Saturday’s Spring game could look very different come July.

Maybe it’s the eyeliner or the rouge, the foundation or the mascara, but Colorado’s makeover isn’t complete just yet.

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Coach Prime preaches change because he’s seen change before.

He inherited a Jackson State program that hadn’t had a winning season in more than a half-dozen years and was coming off a 4-8 campaign in 2019.

The Tigers went 4-3 in an abbreviated 7-game spring 2021 schedule, then scored a program-record 11 wins in the fall 2021 season, winning the Southwestern Athletic Conference title, after scoring his first big recruiting win in his son, quarterback Shedeur Sanders. He scored his second big win in 2022 with a tsunami of a commitment, flipping the nation’s No. 1 recruit, cornerback/wide receiver Travis Hunter, from his very own alma mater, Florida State. Some recruiting analysts considered it the biggest commitment in college football history, and a landmark moment for historically black colleges and universities. 

With Sanders and Hunter leading the way, the Tigers went 12-1 last year, undefeated in conference play for a second straight year.

He wasn’t long for the HBCU world, though, not a personality and profile like Prime. He left Jackson State drastically better off than he found it, bouncing to Boulder to help resurrect a Buffaloes program that once was among the nation’s best. He said he was called to Colorado, and maybe he was. He is an agent of change, after all.

“It’s funny how you believe the Lord when He said to come here, but you don’t believe me when I tell you the Lord may tell me to do otherwise,” Sanders told reporters on his way out the door. “It’s like my god is talking to you about me. I don’t think He works like that. But it’s so much more that I can’t do because that’s not my occupation. I’m a football coach and a darn good one.

“Name one thing in football that we haven’t accomplished that I said we would. But it’s bigger than that. Until we address these underlining issues that nobody wants to talk about, ain’t nothing going to change. Football, yes. But what else is going to change? And I’m a change-agent. That’s what it’s all about to me. I’m not just attached to the football players, the equipment persons, the trainers, the academic persons. Everybody on campus.

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When Coach Prime arrived in Boulder, he made it clear to the players that no job was safe. And then he took a flamethrower to the team.

Was he courteous? Probably not. Was he couth? Maybe not. Was he coddling? Definitely not.

He laid it on the line: Some of you in this room — many, in fact — won’t be with this team come Spring. And they weren’t. Nearly two dozen Buffaloes have entered the transfer portal since Coach Prime arrived, and more are to follow.

Colorado’s overhaul began with the transfer portal and continued right up to signing day. It continues still.

The Buffaloes remain over the scholarship limit, with more 40 new players and 51 holdovers from the previous staff. Several Colorado players have already announced their portal entry, but there is room for many more. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Sanders add another half-dozen (or more) players, which would necessitate a similar trimming of the roster.

And that starts Saturday with a Spring game that doubles as a recruiting open house.

“This weekend is going to be phenomenal,” Sanders said this week, according to USA Today’s Brent Schrotenboer. “It’s going to be a lot of ‘24 players as well as guys that … we’re going to sign right now and hope to sign and hope to get a commitment when they come on the trip and see how beautiful this city is and this university is. We’re happy.”

Of course he’s happy! The overhaul is in full swing.

Colorado already has the best transfer portal recruiting class in the country, with more than 20 combined 4-year and graduate transfers who enrolled before Spring ball. With relaxed admission standards and benefiting from a rule change in 2021 that allowed transfers to gain immediate eligibility, Colorado’s roster makeover is unheard of. Other schools, including Arizona State this year under Kenny Dillingham, have had purges, but not like this.

No coach has so boldly encouraged a program’s dedicated players to leave, and rarely has one been so dismissive of a previous regime’s efforts.

That’s part of the Coach Prime show. It’s not always pleasant viewing.

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Of course, this will all be for nothing if the Buffaloes don’t deliver on the field. No one is expecting a USC- or Washington-like resurgence from a Colorado program that won 1 game last year and has been at or near the bottom of the Pac-12 for much of its tenure. Especially not with a schedule that includes games at TCU, Oregon, UCLA and Utah and home tilts with Nebraska, USC, Oregon State and Arizona. Even a 4-win season would be considered a success by media members who’ve seen the Buffaloes blunder time and time again.

That’s what makes Saturday so special.

For the time being, it’s all about hope. It’s all about promise and possibility. There’s a reason roughly 45,000 fans will watch a Spring football game in Boulder, more than double the program’s previous high. There’s a reason ESPN is televising the game nationally, the only school in the country to get that honor. There’s a reason the team sold out of season tickets.

Fans already see the change. Deion Sanders is the change. And the makeover isn’t complete.