Colorado is opening their 2026 college football season on September 3 against Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Coach Prime is now demanding a professional mindset from his players to prevent mental exhaustion. There have been some strict changes in the locker room, hinting that Deion Sanders will indeed run a very tight ship this season.
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“Let me tell you what we practice at night,” Deion Sanders said to his squad, as reported by Well Off Media on August 29. “We have to change your body time. We got to change your schedule. Right now, you’re usually getting up in the morning early, right? What time do you get up, baby? What time do you get up, Westbrook? Anybody else besides 5:00? I don’t want to hear 5 again. Anybody else? What time?”
‘4:30, sir,’ one player answered.
“What time do you go to bed? If you’re looking up there, you’re lying. They aren’t up there. What time? ‘9:30.’ Okay. Just how many hours of sleep do you get? You know da-n well you all aren’t getting any eight hours. Why do you all have to lie to your boy, man? You all are forgetting that we were once you, trying to change the time cycle of your body so you get the proper rest. What time do we play at Georgia Tech? 8:00 p.m. Eastern. That’s 6:00 p.m. here, right? You’re down there winding down today with your body. We got to change that, fellas. We got to get you on a different cycle, a different time… we can’t be tired, sluggish, yawning, sleepy by the kickoff time,”
Deion Sanders is being incredibly strict. Colorado’s season opener against Georgia Tech kicks off at 8:00 p.m. ET, meaning the game will not finish until nearly midnight. This is not him being strict, but executing an excellent strategy before the game.
As the team has spent all of fall camp waking up at 4:30 a.m. or 5:00 a.m., their bodies are naturally programmed to crash and lose energy by 9:00 p.m. Coach Prime is manually forcing their body clocks to adapt. Hence, their peak physical energy and mental focus occur at night rather than at sunrise.
Coach Prime wants to prevent players from getting tired, sloppy, or mentally exhausted during the critical third and fourth quarters when the game is on the line. To counter this, Sanders is manually altering the team’s biological clock using a two-pronged strategy. Coach Prime is strictly banning the 5:00 a.m. alarms during game week. This will force the players to sleep in later so their morning energy isn’t wasted.
Furthermore, Coach Prime is scheduling the heaviest, high-intensity team practices and walkthroughs during late-night blocks when the game will actually be played.
But he didn’t stop there. The Colorado head coach also addressed his players’ off-field screen time habits. He demanded that they replace hours spent on phones or video games with voluntary film study.
College football has rapidly moved towards a professional setup. When players are earning millions through NIL, they also stop seeing the spot as a chore. The coaches can only do their bit when they have the players in the facility.
The discipline required to succeed in the current climate would demand that players go the extra mile outside their regular hours. Last season, QB mismanagement was the story behind Colorado’s 3-9 record. Even Deion Sanders admitted that he fumbled in shuffling between Kaidon Slater, JuJu Lewis, and Ryan Staub.
However, the Buffs were bad on both sides of the ball. Every game looked like a familiar tale of missed assignments, lack of discipline in the trenches, and late-game fatigue. As a result, the opponents converted on crucial fourth downs. On top of that, Colorado also had several late collapses.
Some of the players who were part of these mistakes are no longer in Boulder. But for the upcoming campaign, Coach Prime wants to address mental lapses before they start. Some of them are down to how the players prepare their bodies for the game. Others can be corrected by actually studying the film.