Colorado offensive lineman Jordan Seaton was once Deion Sanders’ prized possession, but not anymore. He decided to enter the portal yesterday and is attracting NIL offers north of $2 million. What led to Seaton’s last-minute shocker? According to a Colorado alum, it all goes back to Coach Prime’s reluctance to pay his top players.

“Money has something to do with this, so Coach Prime, please stop talking about money publicly. Neely, stop talking about money publicly. Please have a little bit of business acumen,” Colorado alum and former NFL player Matt McChesney said. “Because when you come out and say that we want dogs, not cats. And cats chase bags, and we don’t want guys to chase bags. But then, Coach Prime consistently did it when he was a player.”

Jordan Seaton was a five-star consensus recruit and became the highest-rated lineman ever to come to Boulder. The 2024 class commit was awarded the Freshman of the Year honors by CFN and earned All-Big 12 Coaches honorable mention.

Back in Colorado in 2025, Seaton replicated those heroics and started nine games, contributing the fourth most snaps in the O-line. Rightfully so, Coach Prime was planning to build around Julian Lewis and Seaton in 2026. The recipe was simple: Julian Lewis would try to replicate Shedeur’s heroics while Seaton would stand like a wall protecting him. However, reports now indicate that Seaton is expected to receive an offer of around $1.7 million, due to his NFL-caliber talent. Is Deion Sanders really at fault here?

“They ain’t here about a bag,” Sanders said on January 8. “They’re here about playing the game of football at its highest level, and they know what comes with that.” Coach Prime has also consistently shown contempt for young players receiving multi-million dollar deals. “It’s kind of hard to compete with somebody who’s giving $25, $30 million to a freshman class. It’s crazy… What’s going on right now doesn’t make sense.”

CU’s NIL coffers are limited, and boosters have shown reluctance to fund “one-year rentals” to fund Coach Prime’s project. What good is a player if he leaves after one year without offering a foundational freedom? The Athletic Department faces a total $27 million deficit, the largest in the program’s history. The result? Thirty-three players have already left for the portal this month, and more are likely to follow. As for the argument that Coach Prime chased the “bag” in his career, it might not be entirely true.

“I’d rather chase a place that’s gonna give me the game… not just a bag,” Coach Prime said of his philosophy. “I’ve never chased money in my life.” Sure, many criticize Deion Sanders for ditching Jackson State for CU’s high-paying job. However, one must also consider what he left behind. We’re talking about a Division II program signing a 5-star and Heisman winner, Travis Hunter. “It was the biggest signing day moment in the history of college football,” On3’s Steve Wiltfong described the move.

Moreover, who could forget his two-time SWAC championship wins and his role in placing Jackson State on the map? A power-four offer from Colorado thereafter seemed like a logical career step, and no one can blame him for accepting it. However, Colorado should adopt a hybrid NIL and recruitment strategy, rather than offering players multimillion-dollar contracts.

Keeping players for long without building relationships from high school is disorganized in the current era of NIL and revenue sharing. What would stop a player from ditching Deion Sanders to leave for a $2.5 million offer if he came for the NIL money in the first place at Colorado? And what’s the point of paying a coach $10 million if he can’t build elite rosters?

What should be the ideal recruiting approach for Deion Sanders?

We have seen programs like Indiana building elite rosters, despite having no 5-star recruit in 2025.  The key is to identify underrated talent, develop them with hard-wired coaching, and reap the results. Paying money still would be a crucial part, but a $10 million budget can also lead to an elite roster in that case.

“I didn’t expect to see this one,” Matt McChesney said about Seaton’s departure. “I thought that he was one of the pillars with Prime, especially with all the talk. If you’re a dog, come to Colorado. I didn’t think Jordan would leave because he had vehemently said he wasn’t leaving for a long time, and none of the other guys who left were putting out a bunch of nonsense, saying they weren’t going to leave. They just lost their entire football team.”

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Jordan Seaton’s departure would likely cause more harm. The player was a homegrown Colorado recruit and someone whom Coach Prime even called “the franchise” at one point. In hindsight, many will feel that Coach Prime should have accepted the player’s NIL demands and kept him. Hopefully, starting from 2026, Deion Sanders can learn and adapt his coaching philosophy to meet college football’s changing demands. However, given the unpredictable nature of CFB governance, this plan is not infallible.