Deion Sanders blasts Pac-12 late kicks as ‘dumbest thing ever,’ ignoring what may be ahead in Big 12

There’s been a lot of discussion about late kickoffs in college football over the years, particularly around the Pac-12. And those have come under particular fire from many conference coaches over the years. The latest to blast them is Colorado Buffaloes coach Deion Sanders, with those comments coming on his coach’s show Wednesday ahead of their Friday night home game against Stanford (kicking off at 10 p.m. ET, 8 p.m. local).

Here are some fuller quotes from Sanders on that radio show, via that The Athletic article from David Ubben:

“Thank God we’re not going to be in this conference,” Sanders said Wednesday at his weekly radio show in Boulder.

…“Who makes these 8 o’clock games? That is the dumbest thing ever. It’s the stupidest thing ever in life. Who wants to stay up until 8 o’clock for a dern game?” Sanders said. “What about the East Coast? Do they even care about ratings or anybody watching it?”

…“What are we supposed to do with the kids all day until 8 o’clock? What are we supposed to do?” Sanders asked.

Radio show host Mark Johnson suggested watching football.

“Who’s playing on Friday?” Sanders said.

As noted above, there’s a long history of Pac-12 coaches criticizing late kickoffs. Over the years, everyone from Chris Petersen to David Shaw to Rich Rodriguez has gone after them. And the Friday games have also come in for criticism (in the Pac-12 and well beyond). But Sanders’ comments on the conference need to be taken with a grain of salt, as the Big 12 isn’t necessarily going to get them away from late kickoffs.

Yes, all of the for-the-moment Pac-12 schools are either on Pacific Time or Mountain Time. But three other Pac-12 schools on Mountain Time (Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State) are going with them to the Big 12, and another already there (BYU) is also on Mountain Time. And yes, the rest of that conference is on Central or Eastern Time, but they’ll still have to fill some late windows for Fox and ESPN. (And this is just the latest case of schools and coaches wanting media rights money, but not wanting what actually comes with that, whether it’s late or early kicks.)

And that may be particularly important for ESPN. Fox (and CBS, and NBC) will gain some potential late slots from UCLA, USC, Washington, and Oregon going to the Big Ten. But ESPN is gaining less from Stanford and Cal going to the ACC. So ESPN may try for more Big 12 late slots in the coming years. And we’ll see how Sanders and the Buffaloes respond to that.

[The Athletic]