Deion Sanders Says He Is Not Here for His Job After Colorado’s Sixth Loss: What Has Actually Been Reported
Deion Sanders took the podium in Tempe on Saturday night after Arizona State beat Colorado 20-10, with first-year athletic director Fernando Lovo standing a few feet away, and was asked whether he was worried about his job.
“I don’t think about that, man. I’m not here for my job. I’m here for these young men,” Sanders said. “I’m not, I’m not built like that. Like, like, I’m really not. I’m really, really, really not.”
He added: “I ain’t worried about me. I’m good, my brother.”
Lovo said nothing. He has said nothing publicly about Sanders’ status at any point this season.
Where Colorado Actually Is
The Buffaloes are 3-6 overall and 1-5 in the Big 12. They have scored 178 points and allowed 255, a differential of minus 77. Their wins came by one point at Georgia Tech, by 31 over Weber State and by three over Kansas State. Their losses include 7-41 at Northwestern, 7-29 to Texas Tech and 24-57 at Oklahoma State.
Sanders is 19-27 at Colorado across four seasons: 4-8 in 2023, 9-4 in 2024, 3-9 in 2025 and 3-6 so far. The 2024 team shared the Big 12 regular-season title. Everything on either side of that year has been a losing record.
Three games remain. Houston comes to Boulder on Friday night, Colorado travels to Cincinnati on Nov. 21, and UCF visits on Nov. 28. The Buffaloes have to win all three to reach a bowl game.
Sanders was not pretending otherwise. “You think I’m happy? I’m not happy with the outcomes,” he said. “The season doesn’t look good. It doesn’t look good. I’m not crazy. I can see clearly.” He also promised movement: “I’m gonna say it’s multiple things that will need to change, and it will. As a matter of fact, it’s already in progress.”
What Has Been Reported, and What Has Not
This part matters, because large parts of the internet have been treating a firing as settled for two weeks.
No national reporter has reported that Colorado has decided to fire Sanders, that it has started a coaching search, or that a decision is close. The load-bearing piece of real reporting is an Oct. 28 CBS Sports story by John Talty, Matt Zenitz and Chris Hummer, which says industry sources believe Lovo “could be interested in making a change.” That same report says the industry does not believe Colorado is positioned to pay Sanders’ buyout, and it floats a negotiated exit while calling it unclear whether Sanders would agree to one.
Talty went further on CBS Sports HQ this week, saying the situation could get “a bit messy and weird” and that sources think Colorado may not be able to afford to move on, which would mean Sanders is back in 2027.
Everything louder than that has been commentary. No arrest, no investigation, no ultimatum, no statement from the school.
The Money Is the Story
Sanders signed a five-year, $54 million extension in March 2025 that runs through the 2029 season. His base salaries are $10 million this year, $11 million in 2027, $11 million in 2028 and $12 million in 2029. If Colorado fires him without cause, it owes 75 percent of the base salary remaining.
CBS has reported that buyout at more than $25 million. Multiple outlets have calculated it at roughly $25.5 million if the school moves before this season ends. That is an enormous number for an athletic department that spent three years building its entire brand around one man.
Here is the uncomfortable math in Boulder. Waiting a year does not clearly make it cheaper, and keeping him means selling a fourth season to a fan base whose team went 3-12 over a 15-game stretch heading into late October. The only on-record statement of support Lovo has ever given came in December 2025, before any of this: “Coach Prime’s got my full, unequivocal support.”
That was eleven months ago. Nobody has repeated it since.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
