Colorado coach Deion Sanders praises Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham

With Kenny Dillingham’s Arizona State Sun Devils and Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes preparing to face each other Saturday in Tempe, fireworks are expected.

But don’t count on the two head coaches engaging in a war of words as was the case for earlier opponents of the Buffaloes.

According to Sanders, he and Dillingham almost worked together in the past and he considers Dillingham a top-notch mind in college football.

“I don’t know if he would want me to tell this story but I was assembling a staff once upon a time, and I am not going to tell you who or for what, but he was a part of it,” Sanders said Tuesday.

As Dillingham was a graduate assistant until 2017 and got his first offensive coordinator job in 2019 at Auburn and Sanders was coaching in the high school ranks until 2020, this potential pairing must have come relatively recently.

Sanders, it seems, has been rooting for Dillingham.

“So when I saw him get this opportunity, I was ecstatic. Then we saw one another at the Pac-12 meetings and that was like, that embrace was awesome to me because I know his climb and I know what kind of man he is,” Sanders said.

The compliments did not stop there.

“He is great for that program and he is great for college football. He is a tremendous mind. Offensively, a tremendous mind,” he said.

And for those wishing ASU would have hired Sanders this offseason, Deion says ASU did good.

“He is going to be a great head coach,” he said.

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