Few coaches in college football draw as much attention as Colorado head coach Deion Sanders. With the Buffaloes sitting at 2-5, a $50,000 claim and a book about his career collided at one news conference, and one man in the room thinks the timing could not be an accident.
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“It was interesting. Right before that question, Uncle Neely walks into the press conference, sits down, and he’s got my book in his hand,” said journalist Brian Howell on Denver Sports 104.3 The Fan. “And guess what? It was during that answer that Coach Prime turns it on me. And all of a sudden, deflects the attention from that national story and now turns it on me.”
He acknowledged the timing was suspicious but stated he could not confirm Sanders deliberately coordinated the moment, leaving the interpretation to the viewers.
“So, planned? I don’t know, but I’ll leave that for people to judge, whether it was planned or not,” he concluded.
Howell, a longtime Colorado insider, wrote the book, Prime Time Legacy: Deion Sanders’s Rise to Coaching Major College Football. To understand why he brought it up, you have to start with the national story he mentioned.
Christopher Neely, known as “Uncle Neely,” is Sanders’ friend and has worked as his personal videographer. He said critics of Sanders profit from talking about him during an appearance on BuffBoys Live on October 26.
“For the most part, the people that attack him wouldn’t be making the money they were making if he wasn’t here to attack,” Neely said.
According to Neely, Sanders told some of those critics, “Hey man, let’s just do this. I give you $50,000 to not mention my name for a year.” Neely added that nobody had taken the deal. That claim instantly went viral.
Sanders pushed back on X and wrote, “This is a lie, but God bless you all,” adding that Neely is a friend and that his son does his videos. At his Tuesday news conference, he called the original remark a joke. “I would never offer a man money. I don’t give a darn what you say about me.”
That is where the dispute over Howell’s book began. When asked about it, Sanders said, “Some people live on your name.” He then said, “Brian wrote a book I ain’t know about… At least tell me about it… I ain’t hard to find. No, I’m not. I’m here every day.”
Howell responded that he had tried to contact him. The book is described by its publisher as built on interviews with Colorado officials, players and Sanders himself.
Howell offered a detail that gave the moment another layer. The copy Neely carried in was one Howell had signed for Sanders after getting a box of books a couple of weeks earlier, and he handed it to the coach’s chief of staff.
“So, he’s had it for a couple of weeks. I think they’re just sitting on it,” Howell said. “You can make your own judgments on whether that was planned or not.”
The backdrop makes any deflection theory easy to float. Colorado has lost five straight, most recently 57-24 to Oklahoma State. The Buffaloes led by one point in the first half, then gave up 34 unanswered points after halftime. Isaac Wilson threw for 222 yards in the first half, but the running backs managed just 42 yards on 15 carries, and a second-half fumble helped Oklahoma State take control.
Jake Shapiro, a sports analyst for Denver Sports 104.3 The Fan, did not hold back on X.
“Pack your bags, Deion Sanders; it’s time you get out of Boulder, Colorado,” he wrote, calling “Coach Prime” an insult to real college coaches.
Last week, during the postgame presser, Sanders showed his own frustration over how the team plays.
“We’re so disciplined in this and that, and this and that, and every darn thing we do, but it seems like as soon as we go in the field, we’re not disciplined,” he said.
This season is starting to look like a pattern. Colorado went 9-4 in 2024, then fell to 3-9 in 2025, and if the school fired Sanders after this year, it would reportedly owe him $25.5 million. He has also had trouble with reporters before. In 2024, he refused to take questions from Denver Post columnist Sean Keeler, and the university later barred Keeler from asking questions at football media events.
Whether the book moment was planned remains an open question, and Howell himself left it there. Sanders is dealing with a losing streak, an alleged $50,000 story, and an upcoming game against Kansas State on October 31.