Deion Sanders floated as eventual candidate for SEC powerhouse

Mandel was skeptical about Coach Prime's fit in Tuscaloosa given his unique coaching style, but the college football analyst believes if Sanders has a bit more success at Colorado, then most athletic departments are going to sign off on his approach. 

"I'm saying, if you hire Deion, you have to be comfortable with the rap stars on the sideline and the video cameras everywhere," Mandel said. "And I don't know that that's going to go over everywhere. But I also think that if he turns out to be as good a coach as he's showing to be so far, you'd be crazy not to hire him. 

Coach Prime has an admirer in Nick Saban

We do know from the Aflac commercials that Saban is an admirer of Sanders. Jokes aside, Saban has been vocal in his support for Sanders throughout his coaching career.

"I have a tremendous amount of respect for Deion Sanders," Saban said on September 20, per ESPN. "First, he's a great person and he's done a great job of marketing the program to create a lot of national interest."

Nick Saban has downplayed the retirement talk

Earlier this season, Saban downplayed the idea of retirement, emphasizing that he still enjoys coaching. As for Sanders, Coach Prime will need to keep turning around the Buffaloes program to be a top candidate at a college football powerhouse like Bama. That said, Sanders is well on his way to doing just that in Boulder. 

“When you don’t have the same amount of enjoyment and I think probably there’s always a time where it might be better if someone else did it," Saban said during an interview with Fox's "Big Noon Kickoff," per On3.com. "I don’t know for sure exactly how you know when that is. I love it.”

When that time comes, could we hear Sanders' theme music playing in the Crimson Tide locker room? We can only imagine the recruiting classes if Sanders were to get the Alabama gig down the road.