Deion Sanders tapped the table, said “Gotta calm myself down,” and spent roughly ten seconds chanting indecipherable words before he answered a single question about Colorado’s 52-21 win over Weber State. Three days later, that ten-second stretch is still the only thing anyone’s talking about from a game the Buffaloes won by 31.
The clip of Sanders speaking in tongues spread fast, and it turned into an actual argument over whether the moment was genuine or performative. Evangelical writer Jon Root posted that the Colorado head coach had “attempted to pray in tongues before starting a press conference,” calling it “nonsensical babbling” and “not Biblical at all.” His post closed in on 500,000 views.
Sanders waited until Tuesday to respond, unusual restraint for a coach who typically says the first thing on his mind. He explained that he’d just finished chewing out his own team before the cameras came on. “I had just come from addressing the team, and I lit them up, so I had to calm down,” he said. “The only way I know how to calm down is to pray in the spirit. So, you know, it’s not a gimmick.”
He kept going. “There’s not a look at me. No. No. That’s real. I love the Lord with all my heart, and I’m not scared to speak it in front of anybody, anywhere, at any time. But it’s not a planned type of thing.”
Nothing here argues Sanders is lying about his own prayer life.
That was never really the question for anyone watching the pattern instead of the theology.
The pattern: a spontaneous ten-second moment from a Weber State blowout turned into a three-day debate over speaking in tongues, a viral tweet, and a Tuesday news conference where a head coach explained his spiritual practice to reporters who’d come to ask about Northwestern. That’s a Deion Sanders press-conference prayer story outperforming the actual football.
It’s also not new. He did the same thing after the Georgia Tech win, turning a locker-room speech about a one-point escape into the headline instead of the escape. Colorado’s redemption-arc opener gave him his first chance this season to be the story out of a game the Buffaloes nearly lost. Weber State, a 31-point rout with nothing left to dissect, gave him another one.
My mom, who does not follow football, texted me Tuesday asking whether the prayer clip was real or “one of his bits.” That’s the tell.
The tweet below shows how far a ten-second chant traveled.
https://twitter.com/JonnyRoot_/status/2098977620901953992
A theology debate doesn’t usually follow a 31-point win over an FCS team. It did this week, and it wasn’t an accident.
Colorado is 2-0 and heads to Northwestern on Saturday for its first real test of the season. The Northwestern Wildcats, fresh off beating South Dakota State, opened as 3.5-point favorites over the Colorado Buffaloes despite being 1-0 to Colorado’s 2-0 — a road underdog spot that would normally be the week’s real storyline.
It will get a fraction of the coverage the prayer did.
He didn’t need to beat Weber State by much. He needed everyone talking about him.
