Deion Sanders has yet to go through a season with Robert Livingston, and he hasn’t had a full season with Pat Shurmur calling plays.

Colorado’s head coach is bullish about the Buffaloes’ coordinators, though.

Livingston, hired last winter to coordinate the defense, is preparing for his first season with the Buffaloes. Shurmur is preparing for his second, but first as the offensive coordinator.

Last week at Big 12 media day in Las Vegas, Sanders was asked what went into hiring Livingston, who spent the previous 12 seasons with the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals.

“Oh my God, just the opportunity,” Sanders said. “We needed a defensive coordinator. I’m a pro. That’s nothing against the college coaches, because we have some phenomenal college coaches, especially in this conference, but I’m a pro. So I like the relationships and the thought process of a pro, and coach Livingston was recommended to me by a few pros that I’m well familiar with and I trust, Mike Zimmer being one of them.”

Zimmer, recently hired by Dallas Cowboys as their defensive coordinator, was Sanders’ position coach with the Cowboys in the 1990s and they’ve had a close relationship ever since. Zimmer was working with the Bengals when he hired Livingston.

Hired in February by CU, Livingston is entering his first year as a coordinator, but he’s been impressive to Sanders in his five months on the job.

“His interview process and his consistency and his thought process and his relatability just placed him well above the other applicants,” Sanders said. “I’m happy I made the decision. When we look back on it, first of all, I pray to God that I can keep him because I feel like we’re going to kick butt, we’re going to win, and he’s going to be a head coach in college or pros or whatever he endeavors because he’s that good.

“I’m thankful and I’m happy for him, but he’s awesome. When I tell you awesome, he is totally awesome.”

Meanwhile, Coach Prime continues to speak highly of the connection Shurmur has with senior quarterback Shedeur Sanders.

Shurmur, a longtime NFL coach including head coaching stints with the Cleveland Browns and New York Giants, was hired last summer as an analyst. Eight games into the 2023 season, however, he was promoted to a co-coordinator role and took over play-calling duties.

Without even being asked about Shurmur last week, Coach Prime said, “We have another guy on the other side of the ball named Pat Shurmur that’s pretty darn good, as well. I mean really good. And his compatibility and his relationship with Shedeur is amazing. And what they plan on doing this season, I can’t wait to see it myself.”

Big trip ahead

CU has a full month of preseason camp and several games to get through before heading to Central Florida on Sept. 28, but there’s no question Coach Prime is looking forward to that trip.

The game at UCF will be CU’s first road trip in the Big 12, but it’ll be a return to Sanders’ home state, which has also become a focal point of the Buffs’ recruiting.

“Yeah, most definitely,” he said. “We have, I think, close to 20 or more Floridians on our team and I’m from Florida. We’ve got a few staffers from Florida. So I welcome that moment that we get an opportunity. And I guarantee you that’ll probably be the most requests from high school players that week that they ever had. I’ll make sure of that.”

Future recruiting

Through his first two offseasons at CU, Coach Prime and his staff have built the roster by heavily targeting transfers. He said he sees a shift towards more high school recruiting in the future, however.

“We do what we have to do to make sure things are sufficient,” he said. “Now once we have stability at other positions, then we want to grab more freshmen. You’ll probably see an increase in that every year that we guarantee success.”

Coach Prime pointed out that CU played 13 of its 17 freshmen last year, a sign that the Buffs aren’t just relying on transfers.

“Who else played more freshmen than we do?” he said. “So who in college football plays 80% of their freshmen? Nobody.”