“Defense players DM me,” was the Instagram story that Shilo Sanders hardly thought would bring in such a wild reaction from across the Nation. Yet it did. Interestingly, it was not just Shilo who was chipping in his bit for CU with the spring transfer portal opening. It was all the Sanders at CU, including Shedeur Sanders, and Deion Sanders Jr, who were promoting the program to lure in more transfers through X.

Shilo Sanders was thrashed for resorting to a never-heard-before way of recruiting in CFB. Well, who’s to blame? Since very little has been by the book in Prime’s unorthodox recruiting strategy. Amidst all this came Shilo Sanders’s response to the criticism. Upon hearing the question “

Why do you think that there was such a negative reaction to that?” Shilo Sanders unleashed a response that could be called the most burning of them all, which it was even though he said it quite innocently.

“It’s player-to-player connection,” Shilo Sanders explained in his April 18th press conference. “The day I posted is the first day the portal opened. I want the best opportunity to win which ends up you know we get drafted there earlier. So I’m going to do all I can to beef up the team. I just want to make it easier for other guys to really just feel like, ‘All right if I want to go to Colorado, it’s not it’s not hard’. It’s not hard cuz my dad said he ain’t hard to find. We’re not hard to find either,” Shilo Sanders explained. Hence, taking up the idea of Shedeur Sanders helping out the transfers on Twitter, Shilo Sanders did the same thing on Instagram.

Yet, Shilo’s attempt at upholding his dad’s words, along with his genuine kindness to help the transfers feel “

at home” in CU, went down the drain of criticism. His intentions were clear to his family, however, as his brother, Deion Sanders Jr. took to Instagram to defend his brother.

Deion Sanders Jr. jumps to Shilo’s defense

It was not through a social media post or a press conference that Deion Sanders Jr. defended his brother. It was through a direct barb at a reputed sports publication house Sports Illustrated. When SI posted about the criticism the Sanders family has been garnering, especially Shilo Sanders due to his comment, it simply vexed Sanders Jr.

The reason? Sports Illustrated named Deion Sanders the SI Sports Person of the Year 2023, pinning their post of the accolade the first on their profile, and still talking about the criticism thrown at Sanders. The post was later deleted, however, it didn’t stop Sanders Jr. from calling out SI publicly. “Hating while y’all still have our picture pinned at the top of y’all page,” dissed Sanders Jr.