Where Deion Sanders-Cormani McClain relationship at CU went wrong

Deion Sanders figured he’d just bagged the second coming of himself. Cormani McClain figured he’d landed an instant starting spot and a seat at the table with the rest of Coach Prime’s Chosen Ones. Both guessed wrong.

“Just knowing Coach Prime and (assistant) coach (Kevin) Mathis and knowing Cormani and the expectations, it was going to be rough in the beginning,” Samari Rolle, the former NFL defensive back and one of McClain’s old 7-on-7 coaches with the South Florida Express, told me recently.

Coach Prime’s recruiting might have been changed by The Cormani McClain Saga. Just not the way CU Buffs fans envisioned it 16 months ago.

“I thought that eventually, (Cormani) would do what needed to be done and get out there and play,” Rolle said. “But it wasn’t the plan.”

Whatever the plan was, it went off the rails ages ago. McClain, the former CU cornerback and top-rated recruit in Sanders’ first Buffs class, entered the transfer portal last month. He reportedly became a Florida Gator last week.

So what happened? How did a marriage made in 247Sports heaven end in finger-pointing and YouTube one-upmanship?

“Maturity and the expectations,” Rolle continued. “Cormani was the No. 1 (prep) defensive back in the nation, so the way that CU was able to get (him) and everything, that put a bullseye on him.

“Whether right or wrong, the bullseye was on him. And one thing I will say about Prime is, he won’t expect players to give him anything on the field that they don’t have the ability to do. If he does expect a lot out of you, it’s because you have that ability.”

Sanders expected more of a finished product, someone dedicated to their craft, to the defense, to the standard, to winning now. McClain expected his own timetable. Time to make mistakes. Time to learn. Time to figure it out. Ne’er the twain.

“I know one thing that (Sanders) learned from (longtime ex-Florida State defensive coordinator) Mickey Andrews is, (he) won’t let you go out there and cheat yourself and cheat everyone else,” Rolle said. “I’ve never seen a guy be average during the week and then be great on Saturday. So (Deion has) got a lot of that in him.

“I knew that (could be an issue) coming in.”

McClain wasn’t the only one to raise red flags, though. Not by a long shot. Of the 71 players added to the Buffs’ roster in their 2023 recruiting class, per the 247Sports database, 29 entered the transfer portal from Nov. 27, 2023, through April 30 of this year.

Of the 21 high-school prospects who joined CU, 11 — McClain chief among them — wound up hopping into the portal after less than a year in Boulder.

“That was surprising,” Rolle said. “But I think they want to win at CU. And if they’re not there, it’s for a reason. And one thing we’ve got to realize with the transfer portal and everything, it’s that (because) kids are being paid (by NIL) now, it’s more like professional sports. If you’ve been (rewarded) and then they expect you to play a type of way or perform that type of way, and you don’t, now it’s kind of like the NFL. It’s like, ‘Can we move this guy? Do we have (time) to (coach) them to do what we need them to do?’ That’s the biggest difference I see now.

“I see people really get emotional that (Sanders) gave up on these kids. You know, the transfer portal works both ways.”

And the recurring themes from Year 1 of the Coach Prime Era have been felt both ways, too. In a video posted Wednesday, CU assistant head coach Gary Harrell told the On3 Recruits’ YouTube feed that Sanders is changing his tune some on the recruiting front. That his experiences with ex-Buffs such as McClain and swift tailback Dylan Edwards — another CU star freshman who transferred out this spring, eschewing Boulder for Kansas State — drove home the idea that landing five-star commitments doesn’t always mean you’re getting a five-star commitment to the program.

“I’ll be honest: Before, when we made the flip, we (were) going to get guys because of the school where they were coming from — from Alabama or Florida State, chasing those four- and five-stars. And we made some mistakes,” Harrell told On3. “A lot of guys that we got on campus, we realized they (were not) the guys that we needed.

“And in one meeting, Coach Prime, he was like, ‘All right, stop chasing the four- or five-stars. Find the guys that love the game. Find the guys that have aspirations for us going to the next level. Find those guys and let’s coach them up.’ So we kind of, like, changed a lot of things in how we recruit.”