Jackson, MS–Head football coach Deion Sanders has begun the second summer session of Jackson State‘s strength and conditioning.
Thee Pregame Show has exclusive coverage of the Tigers program as they prepare for kickoff against Florida A&M in Miami, September 4. Watch all the action here.
That’s What We Do
Sanders stood in an auditorium and addressed players with the norms for Tiger football.
“With the cafeteria workers, yes ma’am, no ma’am, yes sir, no sir,” Sanders said. “With Lauren, Dominique, and my sister here, yes ma’am. All right? You don’t call him Weeks, you don’t call him Ricard, you don’t call him Matthew. You don’t call the GAs by their names, that’s coach whatever. That’s what we do.”
Attire was the next thing Sanders laid out.
“Black socks only for all you new guys,” Sanders said. “Wear what we give you. If you want to do your own thing, you go somewhere else and do your own thing.”
Sanders said everyone must “look accordingly.”
“No earrings, no hoodies, no hats in the meeting.” Sanders said. “Y’all got to stop all this bull junk.”
It’s A Certain Pace with Jackson State Conditioning
Sanders also spoke about the dynamics of the team.
“Special teams are a team, we take that very seriously,” he said. “You’re not going to Miami if you’re you’re not a starter. If you’re not on special teams, why are we taking you?”
Sanders said players shouldn’t bombard coaches on where they want to be placed.
“Coach Ricard, his teams are real,” he said. “We’re going to have better synergy. The coaches are going to help Coach Ricard with application of who should be where and what special teams.”
For Sanders, every day is a step towards winning.
“We win here today, we win here now,” he said. “We got a competitive advantage. We’ve been here all summer. Some of y’all just getting here, some of y’all gonna go at a heck of a speed, you’re gonna see that we compete at everything. Ain’t no walking on that field. In between those lines, we don’t walk. In between those lines, we ain’t laughing, we ain’t giggling, we’re working, we’re going at it.”
Sanders said it’s simply “what we do.”
“It’s a certain pace,” he said. “It’s a certain speed that we go at, we operate at.”
Only two starters
Sanders then segued to a very important topic – starters.
“We probably got two guys that’s going to start on this team right now that we know of,” he said “One is your quarterback (Shedeur Sanders), and one is Travis (Hunter). The rest of all y’all, work. Earn it. Take it how you want it, feel how you want. If you don’t like it, get out. That’s the real deal of it. Everybody else, compete.”
We’re the Standard
Chris Neely of Thee Pregame Show was able to chat with Deion Sanders after his talk with his Jackson State team.
“I was thinking,” Sanders said. “Teams have improved, and I love it. I see it and I’m happy because we’re the standard and they’re trying to catch up. But the thing that they forget is we’re trying to move farther ahead.”
“They’re trying to get where we were,” Neely said.
“Right,” Sanders said. “Because you’re building to match up. It’s just like the NFL. You draft players and you acquire players to match up to what the team had the previous year. But we’ve gone ahead again.”