Coach Prime is fully focused on turning it around next season after a disappointing 3-9 finish in Colorado’s 2025 campaign. To build a culture of accountability in the Buffs’ locker room, he hasn’t shied from showing his players plays that he messed up on during his playing career.

“Let me show a clip that I’m not proud of, but the conclusion, I’m proud of. Reason? I’m not proud of that because I got beat for six,” Deion Sanders said while showing a clip from his playing days to his players, as documented by Well Off Media on August 7.

The play Coach Prime referred to occurred during a 1990 game between Atlanta and Washington. Deion Sanders was covering the slot when Washington’s Art Monk beat him with a simple stutter-go move.

At the snap, Monk exploded off the line of scrimmage, vertically threatening Deion down the seam. A few yards in, Monk executed a perfect hard stutter step or double move. He chopped his feet and body-faked as if he were breaking his route off short to catch a quick pass. Sanders fell for it hard.

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QB Doug Williams threw the ball, and Monk caught it for a 34-yard touchdown. Sanders knew what would happen the moment Monk passed him. When his DB coach asked him what happened, the NFL HoFer had a short answer. “Coach, he got me,” he said.

“But it won’t happen again. I bet you that for the rest of the game, I bump and run, bump into their chest, and bump them for the rest of my career. And rarely are you going to see a clip like that because I understood what the assignment was and what my responsibility was, and I didn’t make any excuses. I’m sick of excuses. I’m tired of excuses.”

For a young DB who was being touted as one of the best players in his position, the moment meant more than a simple error. It forced Sanders to evaluate his game, and because he was eager to learn, it only paid dividends.

Coach Prime wants his Colorado players to adopt a similar approach. Mistakes are part and parcel of the game, especially when you’re going against talented players across the board. However, it is equally important what you do before and after the mistake.

The main thing for Coach Prime is that his players learn to take accountability. If they lost a man they were supposed to cover, they should raise their hands and accept the error. The learning will eventually follow. What shouldn’t happen is evading responsibility or finding excuses to pin on the teammates or just brushing past them. The lesson is even more important for a Colorado defense that failed to deliver last season.

The Buffs allowed 30.5 points per game on defense during their 3-9 season. While the passing defense was average, the run defense was nonexistent. Colorado gave up 222 rushing yards per game. This was the same issue that plagued their 2024 season. While some of it was down to personnel, repetitive failures also tell a lot about a unit’s inability to correct mistakes.