A week after revealing why he lost respect for Deion Sanders during a meeting over a decade ago, former NFL player Breiden Fehoko is doubling down.
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Now, Fehoko has taken his criticism a step further, claiming Sanders was never qualified for the head coaching job in Boulder to begin with.
“I know he was never qualified to take the Colorado job,” Fehoko said on The Breiden Fehoko Show on Sunday. “He had no FBS coaching experience before Colorado. He went from coaching at Jackson State, who was a FCS school, directly to a Power Five program. We have never seen that type of jump before in the history of college sports. And then second, he’s got no traditional college football coordinator experience.”
In December 2022, Deion Sanders was hired as Colorado’s head coach because the football program was in complete ruins. Athletic Director Rick George sought a massive cultural shockwave to revive a team that had just finished a dismal 1-11 season and spent two decades fading from national relevance.
While Coach Prime had been interviewing for several Power Five jobs in recent years, he ultimately landed in Boulder. Strictly speaking, Sanders was not a conventional hire, as he lacked the typical assistant or coordinator qualifications traditionally required for an FBS-level head coach.
Yet he possessed an elite, unconventional resume, having spent three seasons as the head coach of Jackson State University, an FCS-level HBCU, where he proved he could win by compiling a 27-6 record and securing back-to-back SWAC championships. Plus, with the rapid rise of the modern NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) era, Sanders’ immense star power made him seem like the ultimate fit to attract top talent and completely disrupt college football.
“Whenever you see guys take over a Power Five job, or now it’s the Power Four as we know, even the Colorado job, LSU job came available this year. You have guys who’ve had resumes,” Fehoko added on the show. “When I look at Colorado, they hired a phenomenon instead of hiring a coach. They hired somebody who had aura and a resume instead of getting somebody who was qualified to lead men and restore Colorado to where people and the true fans of Boulder wanted to be.”
Sanders improved the 1-11 team to 4-8 in 2023, followed by a major leap to 9-4 in 2024. But that momentum came to a screeching halt during the 2025 season when Colorado collapsed to a disappointing 3-9 finish, triggering heavy fan backlash.
Facing the heat ahead of the new season, Sanders owned up to the disappointing slump during the Big 12 Media Days in July.
“I made a big mistake, man,” Sanders told ESPN, referencing the QB position. “You got to understand it. I’ve coached my son my whole entire life. So everything was like, compared to that. It’s hard to get.”
But for Fehoko, the core issue isn’t Sanders’ coaching record. It’s the gap between his social media persona and reality. As a 17-year-old, Fehoko came face to face with his childhood idol, only to be left deeply disappointed by the encounter.
“What really pissed me off and what really turned me on Deion Sanders and what really made me think that this guy’s a f—— s——, I was a 17-year-old kid in Orlando, Florida,” Fehoko said on the August 22 episode of The Breiden Fehoko Show. “I remember Deion walked by, we were in the players’ lounge for the Under Armour All-American game, and I remember Deion walking by, and I’m a young kid from Hawaii, just left the Rock.
“I go up to Deion and he’s got his whole entourage with him just like how Deion rolls now. I said, ‘Man, Deion, I’m a big fan of you.’ He’s just looking at me right now. I’m like, ‘I’m a big fan of you, man. I would love to get a picture. I would love some advice, man. Like, how do you know? What are some things I can do to be successful?’ He looks at me in this very tone. He says, ‘Hey, man. Move along.’ Just like that.”
Ultimately, that single interaction left a lasting impression on Fehoko, shaping how he views Deion Sanders today. Whether that early encounter directly influences his stance remains up for debate, but Fehoko continues to maintain that the Coach Prime persona fails to align with reality.
