A video of Deion Sanders talking about his lack of interest in meeting with program boosters is enlightening Auburn football fans as to why he was a long-shot candidate to be hired as the Tigers’ head coach.
In an interview with Undisputed with Skip and Shannon co-host Shannon Sharpe (h/t The War Rapport), Sanders said that his time is more valuable than meeting with the power brokers who fund operations for Power Five programs.
Needless to say, that was the lightbulb fans needed to go off to understand why Auburn football was such a poor fit for ‘Prime Time’:
Exibit A why Prime at Auburn will never happen and would never have worked.
— HaliT 🧡💙🐅🦚🦅 (@hali_t2010) January 2, 2023
I, for 1 am glad "it didn't go well"...Auburn won by not getting this guy IMO.
— WAR (EAGLE) MACHINE (@InfiniteAubFan) January 2, 2023
Wow! Isn’t that part of the job when your hired by a university for public relations and figure head of a sports program? I still wanted @CoachCaddy24 but so far have liked what @CoachHughFreeze has done and waiting to see next chapter he’ll create @AuburnTigers
— Trevor (@trevornewton68) January 2, 2023
Prime is all about selling the Prime brand, not the Auburn or Colorado fb brand.
— JeepinTodd 0|||||||0🥶 (@ToddSeagers556) January 2, 2023
The amount of time coaches can spend with football is limited by ncaa rules. He just doesn’t want to do the foundational work to build the program. He’s unwilling to lower himself to these sort of coach activities. He is all about himself. https://t.co/DunOWVUzAL
— Auburn Tweep (@AUTweep) January 2, 2023
Auburn football hired someone with minimal leverage and will benefit from it
The Auburn way is what the AU brain trust wants, and it’s clear Bryan Harsin wasn’t about that when he arrived on the Plains in 2021. Evidently, Deion Sanders wouldn’t have bended the knee either, but his success at Jackson State would have allowed him to come out unscathed had things gone wrong had the Auburn football program hired him.
The Tigers ended up with Hugh Freeze, which may have disappointed some hoping for a bigger name, but there is a silver lining. Because Freeze’s last SEC stint ended so disastrously, AU now holds the cards in the partnership. Freeze has minimal leverage, so whatever the boosters want, the boosters will get.
And if it results in wins on the football field, few Tiger fans will bat an eye.