Shane Gillis roasted Colorado Buffaloes football coach Deion Sanders and Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders at the ESPYS for retiring the latter's number at CU.
Colorado Buffaloes football coach Deion Sanders and his son, Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders, caught a stray during the 2025 ESPYS for the pair’s supposed display of nepotism in Boulder over the last few years.
ESPYS host Shane Gillis took an on-the-nose, punchline-less jab at the two, incorrectly listing Shedeur’s record with the Buffs and sardonically and rhetorically asking if it wasn’t nepotism that resulted in the “Grown QB” getting his number at CU retired in April.
“Shedeur Sanders had his jersey number retired at Colorado this year, and people are saying it’s because of nepotism, because of his father, and it’s not. It’s because he went 13-12 over his career, and he almost won the Alamo Bowl,” Gillis prefaced before asking, “Definitely not nepotism, right?”
As USA Today’s Brent Schrotenboer pointed out, Sanders is considered the best QB the University of Colorado Boulder has ever seen. However, his number being retired before championship-winning signal-caller Darian Hagan is controversial.
“Shedeur Sanders, now with the Cleveland Browns, actually went 13-11 as starting quarterback at Colorado across the 2023 and 2024 seasons while playing for his father Deion, Colorado’s head coach. But he is considered possibly the best quarterback in school history after breaking over 100 school records and reviving a program that went 1-11 in 2022, the season before he arrived,” Schrotenboer wrote.
“The decision to retire his jersey number still was controversial, partly because it came less than four months after his last college game in the Alamo Bowl against BYU, which he lost, 36-14.
“The decision also seemed to overlook other all-time Colorado greats, especially former Colorado quarterback Darian Hagan, who led Colorado to the national championship in 1990 and had a 28-5-2 record as QB. By contrast, Hagan’s jersey number never was retired by Colorado.”
Hagan shared dismay at CU’s decision to retire Sanders and Travis Hunter’s numbers before his.
Gillis just brought the issue back into the limelight, leading to Schrotenboer putting Hagan into the spotlight in the ESPYS’ immediate aftermath.
In an extremely roundabout way, the joke was a win for everyone involved. You know “Prime Time” is happy for the mention, even if it didn’t have the purest of intentions.
Category: General Sports
