Deion Sanders responds to Shedeur's jersey retirement backlash: 'It's personal'

The sports world is divided over the Colorado Buffaloes deciding to retire the jersey numbers of Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter. While most agree it should happen at some point, the timing of it coming down before either star player makes a jump to the NFL is questionable. Also, Colorado only has four players with retired numbers and none from the 1990 National Champioynship team. 

Colorado head coach Deion Sanders addressed the backlash of the retirement announcement during a press conference on Thursday. He made it clear that much of the outrage was about his son being a Sanders. 

"Let's get the elephant out of the room," Sanders said. "I don't want to talk about this too long. I'll just talk briefly and let it go. We are talking about Shedeur, we ain't talking about nobody else. If his last name wasn't Sanders, we wouldn't have this discussion. Only reason we are having this discussion is his last name is Sanders. Okay, that's it."

Sanders regathered his thoughts and expanded further on the issue. 

"The root to all of it, it's personal," Sanders said. "Sometimes we just have to get out of the way man, and just be thankful for our people. Love thy neighbors and thyself."

Sanders is on the verge of being a top pick in the 2025 NFL Draft next week. 

In two seasons at CU, he completed 651-of-907 (71.8%) passes for 7,364 yards with 64 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. Sanders is noted as one of the most accomplished quarterbacks in college football history, completing 1,267-of-1,808 (70.1%) passes for 14,353 yards with 134 touchdowns and 27 interceptions. He threw a touchdown in an NCAA Division I record 49 straight games and is only one of two D1 quarterbacks to throw for 14,000 yards and complete 70 percent of his career passes.

Colorado's Black and Gold Spring game is scheduled at 4:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2.