Deion Sanders’ poaching of America’s top recruit Travis Hunter to the HBCU Jackson State, away from his own alma mater Florida State, continues to be a hot button topic in the sports world. Even NFL legends are talking about it
Terrell Owens, Hugh Douglas, Shannon Sharpe and Doug Williams had a conversation about what Sanders did on the HANG platform on Saturday.
In a clip shared to Twitter, the group collectively felt Sanders was in a much better position to relate to top recruits and their families than traditional college football coaches, with Owens saying there’s not a white coach who could go into Hunter’s home and speak to his family and him like Sanders did.
The clip begins with Sharpe, who played at the HBCU Savannah State and went on to become a three-time Super Bowl champion and one of the greatest tight ends of all-time, sharing his views.
“Deion’s competed at the highest level,” Sharpe said. “And he says, ‘I believe your son has the ability to play on the next level, and I would love the opportunity to help him reach that goal.’ You’re talking about someone that’s credentialed beyond credentialed. He’s a Hall of Famer and regarded as the best cornerback to ever play.”
Sharpe said that Sanders could also pitch recruits and their parents that he could help them become a man.
“[Deion] speaks their language. He’s someone who can communicate with them on a level that you can’t communicate with any other coach,” said Douglas, former Eagles great who played at HBCU Central State. “You’ve got Young Jeezy and T.I. speaking to the kids. It’s a genuine conversation about life. Brittany Renner, you have her come to talk to them about some real stuff.”
Douglas said he didn’t see coaches like Clemson’s Dabo Swinney being able to relate to top recruits about real life like that.
“They’ve gotta have someone like Deion with them to relate for them,” said Williams, who was the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl.
Owens concurred, saying, “To go into that young man’s home, who looks like him, and then obviously have the conversation with his mom, there’s not a white coach who could go into a black man’s home and do that what Deion did. That’s very special.”
We will eventually find out the long-term answer on if this group of former football stars is correct about Sanders. Right now, it still amounts to speculation that he could sustainably disrupt top-tier coaches such as Swinney and Alabama’s Nick Saban.
At this juncture, Sanders is flying high. Despite whatever denials he can issue, and whether or not Barstool Sports was involved in the deal, it is presumable that an element of what Sanders pitched to Hunter, beyond relating to him on the level of star player to star player, was a bundle of NIL money coming his way.
With the spotlight now squarely on him, can Sanders navigate NCAA bureaucracy year after year? How far can he take the Jackson State program, which lost in the Celebration Bowl to South Carolina State on Saturday?
Those are harder questions than merely landing highly touted recruits, and the good news is they’ll be answered on a football field rather than in theory.