Prominent coach says paid players should mean uniform regulations and fines

Deion Sanders believes should dress for success on the field as well
2025 CFP National Championship - Ohio State v Notre Dame
2025 CFP National Championship - Ohio State v Notre Dame | CFP/GettyImages

Deion Sanders will always be known as one of the great personalities in sports. Beyond his Hall of Fame talent, Sanders made it a point to stay clean on and off the field.

So when the Colorado coach sounds the alarm on players taking liberties with their uniforms, it doesn't come from a place of hypocrisy.

“Let’s do something about the uniforms,” Sanders said. “We’ve got guys in biker shorts. That makes me sick because I’m a football guy. I played this game at a high level, and I have so much respect for this game. How can we allow guys out there in biker shorts, no knee pads, no nothing, literally pants up under their thighs, and that’s cool?”

Deion is definitely onto something here. Just look at the picture above, and you can see major discrepancies in how the two players wear their football pants. Quinshon Judkins is literally wearing shorts with no additional padding. It's a look that wouldn't fly in the NFL, and it probably shouldn't fly in college football.

Sanders claims he implements uniform policies for his team and, truthfully, it wouldn't be the worst idea for the college football decision makers to implement some uniform policies to make sure the players keep their pants at an acceptable length. Or they can just require knee pads and the problem will take care of itself.

Of course, there's no one in college football that has the power to make sweeping changes like that and I'm sure the conference commissioners are apprehensive about making uniform regulations out of the fear that top players might transfer out of spite. 

Now this doesn't touch on Deion's other suggestion of fines. That's a slippery slope right now because there aren't any regulations on uniforms, and who would implement the fines? The coach? And does the player have any course to dispute a fine? Right now, this would open up a new can of worms.

But that's where we are in college football right now. Looking for answers and ways to professionalize a game that continues to lose its way.