Deion Sanders snipes back at Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi for criticism of Colorado's roster overhaul

Colorado Buffaloes football coach Deion Sanders is returning serve following some criticism from Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi.

A few weeks ago, Narduzzi made some noteworthy comments about the transfer portal, obviously aimed at Sanders, who openly encouraged many of his Colorado players to leave the program so he could “bring his own luggage with him” from Jackson State and via other college teams.

Deion Sanders telling the CU Buffs football team that he's bringing his own luggage, and that they better hit the portal. This is crazy ???? pic.twitter.com/004LUKiTr2

— College Transfer Portal (@CollegeFBPortal) December 4, 2022

In other words, Sanders wanted a lot of the Buffs players to vacate their spots from a 1-11 team (that hasn’t won a bowl game since 2004) so he could coax an influx of players through the portal to Boulder via his Hall of Fame name, NIL money and all the hype surrounding his hire. A reported 70 players had left the Rocky Mountains in less than six months.

Narduzzi was less than fond of that tactic during an interview he gave to 24/7 Sports which was published on May 22.

“That’s not the way it’s meant to be,” Narduzzi said at the ACC’s spring meetings. “That’s not what the rule intended to be. It was not to overhaul your roster. We’ll see how it works out, but that, to me, looks bad on college football coaches across the country. The reflection is on one guy (Sanders) right now, but when you look at it overall — those kids that have moms and dads and brothers and sisters and goals in life — I don’t know how many of those 70 that left really wanted to leave or they were kicked in the butt to get out.”

As writer Brandon Marcello pointed out, Sanders is able to dramatically shake up the Buffaloes roster with the help of an NCAA rule allowing first-year coaches to remove players from the roster as long as they remain on scholarship, along with the freedom of movement in the transfer portal.

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The Panthers coach didn’t seem to like the wide-ranging use of that luxury by Sanders.

“I grew up in a profession that you can’t tell a guy that he has to leave based on athletic ability,” Narduzzi said. “I think he’ll be shocked that he probably had some pretty good football players in that room. When I got to Pitt back in 2015, I didn’t kick anybody off. Zero. Those are your guys. When you become a head coach, you inherit that team, and you coach that team. If someone wants to leave, that’s great. You don’t kick them out. I disagree with that whole process. That’s not why I got in the game… He’s not the only new head coach in college football. You hear about that anywhere else? No.”

Well, 24/7’s Carl Reed caught up with Sanders for a Q&A published Thursday and gave him a chance to reply to Narduzzi’s criticism.

“What was his situation when he came to Pitt? He had a different situation than me. He is not mad at me. He is mad at the situation in football now that allowed his best player to leave a year ago. He’s not mad at me. He’s using me to shoot bullets at another coach who he has an issue with. I don’t know who he is; if he walked in here right now, I wouldn’t know him,” Sanders said.

Obviously, “Coach Prime” was referring to USC coach Lincoln Riley and his ability to pry eventual first-round pick Jordan Addison away from the Panthers prior to last year. Narduzzi had griped about Riley allegedly tampering with Addison.

I’m sure the “I don’t know who he is; if he walked in here right now, I wouldn’t know him” barb from Sanders is eating at Narduzzi. There’s nothing Narduzzi seems to hate more than the appearance that Pitt is less than relevant on the national scene — and, by extension, him as the coach being less than relevant even though he won a conference title two years ago.

I’ll bet it’s especially vexing for Narduzzi to hear that coming from a guy who has never coached at the Power 5 level and is now running a program that hasn’t been above .500 since 2016—whether that coach is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame or not.

To be honest, I think both Narduzzi and Sanders are full of it. I think both men get caught up in their own bluster way too much. However, I can also see where both sides are coming from in this debate.

On the one hand, Narduzzi is right. There is something entirely distasteful and optically disconnected from the alleged spirit of what college athletics is supposed to be about with the way Sanders has gone about reconstructing the Buffaloes.

But, then again, Sanders is also right in the sense that if he isn’t doing anything illegal, then, ostensibly, Narduzzi is just transferring his agitation with the state of the game and putting it on him specifically.

Sanders is also accurate in pointing out that Pitt was in better shape when Narduzzi took over in 2015. The Panthers weren’t elite by any stretch. But they had at least been selected to a bowl game for seven years in a row before Narduzzi replaced Paul Chryst.

Then again, if Sanders is aware of that (and the Addison situation), it’s a little hard to believe that he actually doesn’t have any idea who Narduzzi is.

Right, Coach Prime?

Look, I’m not a big college football bowl game guy. I think most of them are outdated, boring, inconsequential formalities at the end of the season. But if Colorado could ever play Pitt in a bowl game and we’d have about a month of these two sniping at each other, I’d cover it like it was the Final Four, the Super Bowl and the College Football National Championship all in one.

It would be glorious. And I will be openly rooting for it to happen.