Deion Sanders on who’s the best coach in the Power Five. His answer won’t surprise you.
Editor's note: Follow along with us for live updates from Week 4 of the college football season. Saturday’s slate features seven matchups between teams ranked in the top 25 of the US LBM Coaches Poll,
“60 Minutes” on CBS has been broadcasting interviews with newsmakers for 55 years, including U.S. presidents and A-list actors. It doesn’t usually profile the same person two times in 11 months. But it did Sunday, when it broadcast another segment on Deion Sanders, just 11 months after profiling him last October as head football coach at Jackson State in Mississippi.
The setting this time was the University of Colorado Boulder, where Sanders has coached the football team to a 3-0 start one year after the team finished 1-11.
The show covered his transition there and also posed a question to the Pro Football Hall of Famer:
“Who's the best coach in college football today?” asked “60 Minutes” journalist Jon Wertheim.
“Let me see,” Sanders replied. “Let me see a mirror so I can look at it.”
“You feel that?” Wertheim said.
“What, you think I'm gonna sit up here and tell you somebody else?” Sanders replied. “You think, you think that's the way I operate? That somebody else got that on me?”
Sanders then pivoted and mentioned Alabama head coach Nick Saban, his costar on Aflac insurance commercials and the winner of seven national championships, the most in college football history.
“I love and I adore and I respect and every time I do a commercial with coach Saban,” Sanders said. “It's a gift. Just sitting in his presence and hearing him and - and throwing something else out there so I can hear his viewpoint on it. Because he's forgotten more things than I may ever accomplish. So I'm a student looking up to this wonderful teacher saying, 'Just - just - just throw me a crumb of what you know.'"
COLLEGE FOOTBALL GRADES: Colorado State coach a clown all around
Sanders, 56, told “60 Minutes” last year that he was “not one bit” interested in coaching in the NFL one day. In Sunday's new episode, he elaborated on what made him interested in moving from Jackson State to Colorado last December despite the team’s lack of success over the past 20 years.
“God wouldn't relocate me to something that was successful,” he said. “That don't make sense, do it? He had to find the most disappointing and the most difficult task. And this is what it was. And this is what it is. And I love that.”
He also talked about his roster-building process, which includes bringing in 68 scholarship newcomers out of a roster limit of 85 scholarships. His fame and history set him off from competitors.
"My kids that play for me, they didn't choose a university," he said. "They chose me. That's a difference."
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Deion Sanders goes on "60 Minutes," gets asked who's the best coach