Colorado had different jersey number retirement criteria years before Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter.
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Long before the recent controversy about jersey number retirements under coach Deion Sanders, the University of Colorado had different criteria for when a player could be eligible to receive such an honor.
A player needed to graduate from the university first, according to the criteria from the 1990s.
But that’s not the case with Colorado two-way football star Travis Hunter or Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, Deion’s son. Both had their jersey numbers retired April 19 but have not graduated yet, according to an athletic department spokesman.
The university instead said the decision to retire a player’s jersey number is at the discretion of the athletic department administration and current head coach. That’s the policy, which strikes some former Colorado players as no policy at all.
“For them to not have a process for the retiring of a number is asinine for an institution like Colorado,” former Colorado linebacker Michael Jones told USA TODAY Sports. “It’s just completely asinine.”
It’s not clear when the criteria changed. University officials downplayed the former graduation criterion, saying it never was a specific policy but instead was the “preference of an academic counselor at the time.”
But former Colorado players say the current lack of defined criteria for retiring a player’s jersey number is a big reason for the backlash the university has received after deciding to retire the numbers of Hunter and Shedeur Sanders less than four months after their final game in CU uniforms. These former…
Source link : https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2025/04/30/shedeur-sanders-travis-hunter-colorado-number-retirement-darian-hagan/83337892007/
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Publish date : 2025-04-30 10:04:00
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