Deion Sanders Jr. opens up on family, the change he's seen in his father, Colorado culture shift

2025 was a transformative year for Colorado head coach Deion Sanders and his entire family. But through it all — his father’s bladder cancer diagnosis and subsequent surgery, as well as the single-worst season in Sanders’ six years as a collegiate head coach — Deion Sanders Jr. knows his 58-year-old dad is better for the experience, and it’s already showing dividends in Boulder.

“Last year was terrible for everybody, but it was good,” Sanders Jr. said during Thursday’s episode of the Inside Colorado podcast with Phillip Dukes. “You know, sometimes when you don’t go through them doors, God has to push you through them with different things that’s supposed to happen, that might should have already happened, or that He was thinking about but just didn’t pull the trigger on it.”

Last July, just before the start of the 2025 college football season, Deion Sanders Sr. held a press conference to reveal he had beaten cancer following a May surgery to remove his bladder after a tumor was discovered during a routine exam earlier in the Spring. While the surgery removed the cancer, it left him incontinent, forcing the third-year Buffaloes coach to adjust to life without a bladder.

But, to hear his eldest son tell it, Colorado’s 3-9 season was arguably even more arduous for the uber-competitive NFL and College Football Hall of Famer, prompting the elder Sanders to become even more hands-on than he already was ahead of Year 4 in Boulder.

“(Last season,) he didn’t really micromanage a lot. Now he’s involved in everything. Last year he barely came out of his room at this (point in the offseason). But this year he literally watched every single person’s film before they got an offer,” Sanders Jr. continued. “It’s just, that 3-9 does something to you, bro, so now he’s 1,000-percent involved in every single thing. He’s always been a no-tolerance person, but now it’s a no-tolerance zone over the whole school. Because it’s like, ‘This shit ain’t going to happen again.’ This is embarrassing.”

Sanders Jr. added he’s already seen Colorado players and coaches alike accept more responsibility for living up to the standard his father has built over their first three seasons in Boulder, with many even channeling Coach Prime’s unique confidence and bravado around the building this Spring.

For the 32-year-old Sanders Jr., who played three seasons (2013-15) at SMU but found his greatest success off the field with “Well Off Media,” his media brand that highlights the many accomplishments and experiences of the entire Sanders family. The young mogul routinely produces videos showing exclusive behind-the-scenes content from inside the Colorado football program as well as what his brothers Shedeur and Shilo Sanders are going through in their own budding careers as a NFL quarterback and budding content creator, respectively. Shedeur Sanders recently finished his rookie season with the Cleveland Browns.

But, much like his father and other members of his talented family, Deion Sanders Jr. is constantly striving to reach even greater heights with his still-growing media brand.

“I didn’t know it’d be like a media brand — you always felt like you were going to be in front of the camera, not really behind the camera — but everything I do, you always put 1000-percent effort into it, you always want to master everything and be great at everything,” Sanders Jr. concluded. “I don’t ever think about how big the brand is, because it’s like ‘Dang, I’m still not where boys want to be at.’ There’s still lot for us to do and God still has a lot in store for us.”