Analyst explains why Deion Sanders is 'more like Nick Saban than he is different'

Alabama head coach Nick Saban has a coaching career that spans more than 30 years. He's won seven national championships and is considered potentially the greatest football coach of all time.

Deion Sanders, the new head coach at Colorado, has his Buffaloes flying high after a season-opening upset win over TCU. He's 1-0 at Colorado and came into Power 5 territory with a 27-7 record from three seasons at Jackson State.

By numbers alone, it would seem that Sanders has a lot of catching up to do in order to be compared to Saban, but college football analyst Joel Klatt seems to think they're more similar than most realize.

The reasons? Sanders is hard to play for, Klatt told Colin Cowherd (h/t On3). Much in the same way that Saban is known for running a tight ship with extremely high expectations. All of those players who left Colorado this offseason? They weren't as much kicked out as they took themselves out of the running, per Klatt.

“I will say that I think that I think that the narrative isn’t correct that he essentially ran off everybody. If you actually know what happened, there was only, I know this seems like a large number, but there were only about 19 to 20 guys that they sat with and said ‘hey, listen, it’s not going to work out here. Can we help you get to another program?’" Klatt told Cowherd.

“Everybody else quit. It was too much for them. And why was it too much for them? Because his standard is really high. This is what I think also people don’t understand about Coach Prime, is that he’s more like Nick Saban than he is different from Nick Saban.”