Kiszla: In Coach Prime, the Buffs have found “the Black Bill McCartney” according to former CU quarterback Charles Johnson

BOULDER — The truth is printed in big block letters on a CU hoodie, and the truth is Coach Prime dwarfs the football program he has been asked to raise from the dead.

Although a Hall of Fame cornerback turned coach by trade, Deion Sanders is a natural-born evangelist. Walking unabashedly in lockstep with God, he preaches hope and offers himself as the way to athletic glory.

Hmm, does that remind you more than a little of anybody in CU football history?

“I was at the introductory press conference (for Sanders) and my mouth dropped wide open, because I thought: ‘I am looking at the Black Bill McCartney,’” said Charles Johnson, the backup quarterback whose fifth-down heroics and MVP-worthy performance in the Orange Bowl allowed the 1990 Buffs to win the lone national championship in school history.

With religious zeal, Sanders pedaled his bicycle into the Dal Ward Center on Wednesday, took a call on his cellphone while the media anxiously awaited his words of wisdom, then not-so-humbly described how a coach only on the job in Boulder since Dec. 9 could work the miracle of delivering a recruiting class ranked in the top 25 of the country to a CU program that lost 11 of 12 games.

“We’re not recruiting just the ordinary Tom, Dick and Harry,” Sanders said. “We’ve recruited some guys that can light up that scoreboard and prevent touchdowns from occurring. We’re coming. And we’re serious about that.”

His audience of journalists nodded approval like an enraptured congregation as Sanders took credit for five-star recruits Cormani McClain and Travis Hunter, as well as players who joined the Buffs from 16 states and two foreign countries.

Around the room overlooking Folsom Field, disciples of Sanders wore black hoodies with “PRIME” emblazoned across the chest, dwarfing the CU Buffaloes logo that sat obediently beneath the huge block letters sending the unmistakable message a fine academic institution has bowed to a celebrity coach.

“That has rubbed some guys (including old CU teammates) really the wrong way, to be honest,” Johnson said.

But he noted the football landscape of 2023 bears little resemblance to 1990, with the transfer portal, as well as the riches to be made from name, image and likeness, dramatically altering the way championship teams are built.

“With Coach Prime, I think there are a lot of parents looking out the window, waiting for him to pull up and recruit their kid,” Johnson said.

Hiring Sanders has changed everything for a program that had fallen off the college football map. Now that Prime is here, there will be more blue chips, not to mention renewed hope for conference championships, in Colorado’s future.

From the moment Sanders decided to pull up roots from Jackson State and bring along his son the quarterback, informing CU athletic director Rick George, “We coming,” the Buffs were back in the big time, baby.

But in Boulder, which has often regarded football as a dirty heathen better left to Ohio State and Alabama to worship, I must also ask CU boosters and academics alike:

Are you truly ready for this? Are you sure about that?

“There are a couple of things I worry about,” Johnson said. “No. 1, the cultural mesh. He is uniquely and unapologetically Deion. That’s going to rub some folks the wrong way. Who and wherever the naysayers are, they’re muted right now, because the band is playing real loud.”

A megadose of Prime doesn’t vaccinate the Buffs against a blowout loss to Oregon or USC. Johnson, however, is fully confident Sanders can coach CU up and consistently recruit at a high level to make the Buffs a winner.

But has Sanders, a relentless optimist by nature, fully prepared himself for the backlash in the event his blue chip recruits make ugly headlines off the field?

“Here is what’s more troubling for me, and it’s going to happen, because of the nature of 17-year-olds and the nature of college campuses,” Johnson said. “You let a kid be arrested for something and it becomes a headline. All of a sudden, it becomes an issue of institutional control.”