Getty Deion Sanders, Paul Finebaum's floated pick to replace Nick Saban as Alabama's head coach, stole one of Saban's Crimson Tide assistants for his Colorado staff
On Friday, March 10, Deion Sanders — who was floated by Paul Finebaum as a potential Nick Saban replacement — poached his second assistant from the Alabama coaching staff in former Crimson Tide senior special assistant to the head coach Sal Sunseri, who is now defensive tackles coach at Colorado.
Sal Sunseri joins Coach Prime’s staff as the defensive tackles coach.#GoBuffs 🦬 pic.twitter.com/f9keNZezgK
— Colorado Buffaloes Football (@CUBuffsFootball) March 9, 2023
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Sunseri had been with Alabama since 2019, first as linebackers coach and later as Saban’s senior special assistant. It was his second stint in Tuscaloosa after serving as linebackers coach and assistant head coach from 2009-2011.
Sunseri rejoins Charles Kelly, who was Saban’s associate defensive coordinator and safeties coach, in Colorado after Kelly was brought on to be Sanders’ first defensive coordinator in Boulder.
How Deion Sanders Can Get “Any Job He Wants” Including Alabama
Finebaum said on the January 23 edition of his SEC Network radio show, The Paul Finebaum Show, that if Sanders can resurrect the Colorado football program, then “Prime Time” can have any job he wants (h/t 247Sports). “I think the expectations at Colorado are significantly lower (than most),” Finebaum prefaced. “I think if he can go out there and prove that he can handle one of the worst programs in college football, he can put himself in position to get any job he wants, including Alabama.”
It would take a multi-year rebuilding project in Boulder before Sanders can move in on the Alabama job, though. Saban made it clear at 2022 SEC Media Days that he was not looking to go anywhere anytime soon.
“I love my job,” he said. “I love the relationships with the players. I love the competition. I love the preparation for the games. I just love it.” He then called out the media and other coaches in a passive aggressive tongue-in-cheek manor. “I wish you all would ask all the other coaches that come up here (on the show) — because they tell all the recruits that I’m going to retire — how they know I’m going to retire.”
Saban doesn’t want to think about life after retirement. “All I think about is ‘what am I going to do if I retire?’ Because I love what I’m doing right now. How am I going to be happy if I’m no doing it?”
Sal Sunseri’s Role Under Nick Saban
As senior special assistant to the head coach under Saban, Sunseri was tasked with tracking the transfer portal. Saban described his role in detail during a February 3, 2022 press conference.
“Whether it’s the portal, having people on top of the portal, you almost need a staff of people just like you have a staff of people for recruiting to find out who the best players in high schools are,” Saban prefaced. “You also have to have people responsible to do evaluations in terms of who’s getting in the portal. And also tracking how guys that get in the portal actually do.”
Saban called out the naivety of college coaching staffs that rely on the transfer portal. “I think it’s a little bit of a fad right now to think that I get in the portal and all my issues and problems are gonna be solved,” he said before continuing to outline Sunseri’s role. “But yet it’d be interesting to see how many people really benefit in a positive way from taking advantage of the opportunity to get in the portal, and we’re gonna track those kinds of things and Sal’s gonna be involved in a lot of those things.”