“They Are Mercenaries”: Stanford Player Rips Deion Sanders and Colorado Buffaloes After Unbelievable Comeback Win

The Buffs’ loss to Stanford last week was nothing short of embarrassing. Coach Deion Sanders was more than just disappointed by his team last Friday when Colorado failed to secure a win despite a 29-point lead at halftime. However, it was not just the analysts taking shots at the failure, a Stanford player too had quite some things to say.

Stanford players celebrated the win by mocking ‘The Shedeur’. But that’s not where it ended. After the game, Stanford Offensive lineman Fisher Anderson took to X (formerly Twitter) to rip into Coach Prime and his program while comparing him to the Stanford coach Troy Taylor who was hired by the Cardinal in November 2022.

Deion Sanders Gets Schooled by Stanford Player

The Cardinal launched a strategic and aggressive comeback at halftime against Colorado who were up 29-0, and clinched a major victory in double overtime. Ashton Daniels’ four touchdown passes and Elic Ayomanor’s 13 catches for 249 yards and three scores in the second half managed to hand the Buffs a major upset.

Fisher Anderson, a Stanford offensive lineman, handed the Buffs a second upset the same week when he took a swipe at Coach Prime. The sophomore ripped the Buffaloes coach for his offseason approach. Taking to X, he tweeted,

“A few thoughts on last night: Good always wins out, no matter how bleak it looks. When coach Taylor got hired, he told everyone to stay and believe; Coach Prime told everyone to leave. We are program builders; they are mercenaries. I believe in Stanford football; you should too.”

The tweet refers to the huge exodus the Colorado program saw with Sanders’s appointment. Deion Sanders completely overhauled the program when he transferred from Jackson State to Colorado, bringing along his own team. Anderson compared Sanders to Stanford coach Troy Taylor who joined the Cardinal in 2022 but worked with the existing roster, unlike Sanders.

Stanford improved to 2-4 overall on the season and 1-3 in the conference with the win over their Pac-12 opponent. With Friday’s loss, Colorado, which started the season 3-0, has fallen to 4-3 overall and 1-3 in Pac-12.

Is there merit to Anderson’s claims?

Within five months of Deion Sanders’ appointment to Colorado as HC, he overhauled the entire roster, replacing almost 70% of the team. A staggering 52 Colorado players entered the transfer portal, while Deion brought in a lot of new talent to Boulder, some from his previous team at Jackson State.

The Stanford vs Colorado game featured not only a Pac-12 rivalry but also the battle between two first-year coaches, who both are on a mission to turn around struggling programs. As Anderson pointed out, Deion Sanders utilized the transfer portal to reshape the team, while Taylor took a different approach and tried to transform the team with players who were previously there.

Deion Sanders faced a lot of criticism for “abusing” the transfer portal to overhaul his entire team but was also lauded for turning around a team that was 1-11 last year. However, the Cardinal too were 3-9, a record not much better than the Buffs, in 2022 when Troy Taylor was hired. It seems both coaches have breathed fresh life into the struggling programs, but only one is working with the ones who went through the struggles of an upsetting season firsthand. Only time will tell which Coach’s strategy worked best, while the next year will be more crucial for both.