When he got to Jackson State University in 2022, Gunnar White needed time to get used to working for hall of famer Deion Sanders, the Tigers’ head football coach at the time.

“I was a little star struck, a little bit,” he said. “It took me about two to three months to actually go into the office and not walk past and say, ‘Oh, he’s on the couch, I better keep going.’ I was just trying to keep my head down and just work.”

Sanders is now in his third year as the head coach at Colorado. He has built a star-studded staff that includes fellow hall of famers Marshall Faulk and Warren Sapp, as well as several other NFL veterans.

White doesn’t fit into that same mold, but he was promoted from his analyst job this offseason to become the Buffaloes’ new offensive line coach. And he earned it by keeping his head down and working, particularly over the past three years with Sanders.

“He’s a workaholic, first of all. He works his butt off,” Sanders said of White. “You talk about a man that’s passionate about what he does, and deserves the opportunity.”

White’s own playing career was brief and unheralded. He was an all-state lineman at Terry (Miss.) High School and played two seasons at Hinds Community College before transferring to Texas Tech, where he didn’t play.

Instead, he found a different path to get to where he wanted to go.

“I didn’t play a lot of ball — a little JUCO, had a cup of coffee in D-I,” he said. “After that, I got into student equipment managing at Jackson State, and I worked my tail off.”

For two years (2014-15) he worked as a student assistant at JSU before graduating. He continued to make an impression, though, earning coaching opportunities at Belhaven University, Nevada and back to JSU in 2022.

Along the way, he worked for Timmy Chang, who is now the head coach at Hawaii; Hal Mumme, who was one of the founders of the air raid offense; and Jay Norvell, now the head coach at Colorado State.

It was at Nevada, when he worked for Norvell, that White got to know Bret Bartolone. In 2022, Sanders hired Bartolone to be the offensive coordinator at JSU and White came with him.

“They needed somebody to help with offensive line, and I just came in and I worked,” he said. “I worked and I worked and I worked.”

When Sanders came to CU in December of 2022, Bartolone came with him as a receivers coach and White as an analyst.

Without NFL experience, hard work is the key to getting noticed by Sanders, and White has done that.

Sanders’ position coaches are asked to grade players and give him those reports.

“Usually when I get up to the office, the offensive line, their paperwork is on my desk first,” Sanders said. “(White) has it there first. That’s just who he is.”

In his new role as the offensive line coach, White will work closely with assistant O-line coaches Andre Gurode and George Hegaman, who are both NFL veterans.

“Dre and George, I love them,” White said. “Dre, I got a chance to meet him in ‘23, and we’ve been bouncing ideas back and forth off each other. We’ve worked with similar guys in the past, too. I’ve been around George for a long time, too, and I think we come together. We bounce ideas off each other. I think it’s a great and beautiful thing.”

Overall, the opportunity is one that White is excited about, and it all stems from the trust he earned from Sanders over the past three years.

“It’s just trust and belief. I think that’s the biggest part of it,” White said. “(Working hard) just built trust with within him to myself. I just tried to do everything that he asked me to do, and I don’t bat an eye. And I think that’s how it built.

“I mean, this is everything I’ve been working for. It’s a true blessing to me and my family.”