Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders is under fire for his recent comments about what he looks for in recruits.
During a recent appearance on “The Rich Eisen Show,” Sanders said he looks for quarterbacks with GPAs of 3.5 or higher who come from “dual-parent” households — and that his defensive linemen come from single mothers and are “on free lunch.”
ESPN NFL analyst and former defensive end Marcus Spears wasn’t a fan of the Hall of Fame cornerback’s recruitment style.
“This s–t ain’t funny,” Spears wrote over a clip on Twitter that showed Sanders explaining the attributes he looks for in his quarterbacks and defensive linemen.
“Quarterbacks are different,” Sanders said. “We want mother, father, you know, dual-parent. We want their kid to be 3.5 and up, because he’s got to be smart. No bad decisions off the field, at all, because he has to be a leader of men. It’s so many different attributes in what we look for.”
Sanders went on to say that his defensive line is “the total opposite” of his quarterbacks.
“Single momma, trying to get it. He’s on free lunch. I mean, I’m talking about just trying to make it. He’s trying to rescue momma. Like, momma barely made the flight,” Sanders said.
Spears answered a number of tweets about Sanders’ comments.
“Been telling y’all about Buddy since Day 1 of him taking that job at JSU,” Deadspin writer Carron Phillips wrote.
Spears responded with: “Ion know prime like that but all my interactions with him been cool. I ain’t judging the man I just ain’t rocking with what he said right here. Ion know him well enough to claim he one way or the other but this wasn’t it.”
In a separate post, Spears wrote “Yep” in response to someone that asked: “Help me understand, is he claiming he wants linemen who come from worse situations so they’re more desperate and play accordingly? Is that the idea?”
Prior to joining Colorado, Sanders was head coach at Jackson State, a historically Black college that plays in the NCAA’s second tier of Division I, since 2020.
Sanders coached the Tigers to consecutive Southwestern Athletic Conference titles.