Denver Post columnist slams Deion Sanders saying he's a "Music Man" fraud

Coach Prime deals with unfair criticism even from the regular media covering the Buffs

Omer Khan

Sean Keeler is known for being a "Shock Jock" journalist and it seems to be part of his brand these days. However, The Denver Post writer wanted to make it personal with Deion Sanders this week. He dropped an article that led with a title calling Coach Prime a "False Prophet," which in reality is nothing new, considering Jason Whitlock has uttered the phrase on several occasions.

Keeler went on to call Sanders the "Bruce Lee of B.S." and "Harold Hill in designer shades." This was all within the first line for his smattering hit piece that was highly critical of the business tactics for the Colorado Buffaloes football coach. For those unfamiliar with the Hill reference, he was a character in Disney's 1962 film 'The Music Man', who played the role of a bandleader while embezzling money meant for uniforms and instruments.

The timing for something like this is unusually odd. We're two months deep into the offseason in Boulder with very little to cover. Not to mention, Sanders has only been on campus for a total of 14 months. But if you dive deeper, Keeler might've been saving this up and figured now was a good time to unleash himself as a keyboard warrior.

Sanders called out Keeler in a press conference last November after he tiptoed around asking a controversial question. After going back and forth for a few seconds, Prime told him, "You're barking up a tree that you ain't going to get up. So, just let it go." It was a viral "stiff arm" that was embarrassing for the scribe's reputation.

Keeler says Sanders isn't cut out for the business of coaching sports. One of the greatest players in NFL history with enough clout to demand an "upper room" in Canton, but somehow isn't meant to be right where he's at is baffling.

"If Coach Prime wanted to run for governor, he’d kill it," he wrote. "Rallies for breakfast. Adoring fans for miles. No NCAA. No recruiting rules. No pesky Washington States to hammer you senseless in the cold. No Stanford to hand you a hubris sandwich. No scoreboard staring back with an inconvenient truth you can’t bend to fit the company narrative."

This type of rant would be expected from Keeler if Colorado finishes with a 2-10 record next season. But we're nowhere near that as of right now. What he casually omitted from his post was the Buffs pulling in the best incoming classes in recent history or the team having a record-high cumulative GPA in school history, according to Sanders.

Yet, the focus was streamlined to fit his "Deion doubter" narrative and there's no better example of this than his explanation of CU's 2022-23 fiscal report to the NCAA.

"As the Prime Time hype train left the station, The Buffs sold out every home game — heck, even a spring game — while donations to the Buff Club ($28 million in FY ’23, reportedly), ticket sales and merchandise sales exploded," Keeler wrote. "CU can argue, and justifiably, that the Buffs had to spend money to start making more of it. Although …

“While the rest of the university kicked in ($27.8 million) to subsidize the athletic program when things were bad,” Victor Matheson, an economics professor at Holy Cross, noted with a chuckle, “it’s very unlikely we’re going to see the athletic department take any (’23-24) profit and kick it back to the university.”

"False prophets or false profits? Either way, talk is cheap. I’d run through a wall for Deion. But only if that wall was made of foam bricks and broken promises."

It's clear to say Keeler is either planning on taking his next job or will be covering CU athletics from the confines of his couch next year. Because launching nukes doesn't build bridges.