A Hall of Famer is leaving Deion Sanders’ CU Buffs staff

Colorado’s Gold Jacket-loaded coaching staff is losing a member; running backs coach Marshall Faulk is leaving Deion Sanders’ side to take the head job at Southern University.

The three-year deal for Faulk has been rumored for weeks, but was first reported by football insider Jordan Schultz.

Coach Prime hired Faulk in February in hopes of reworking Colorado’s running game, which has been a struggle since the famous coach first came to Boulder. In Sanders’ first two years in charge, the Buffaloes ran for less than 70 yards a game in each season. This fall the Buffs have rushed for 123 yards a game with one still to play. Though that’s still just the 99th-best mark in the country, it’s a massive jump from two years of being dead last.

A New Orleans native, Faulk, will now get his first head coaching job in Baton Rouge. He’s expected to be introduced as the program’s leader early next week. He takes over at Southern, who fired Terrence Graves after a 1-6 start this year, his second one leading the program even though he guided the Jaguars to a SWAC Championship game appearance and eight-win season last year. Fred McNair has been the working interim and the group has one more game left against Grambling in the Bayou Bay Classic.

Sanders might be the most visible of the trend, but Faulk is part of it too, where former big-name pros jump to taking over as college coaches. Trent Dilfer tried and failed already, while Michael Vick at Norfolk State and DeSean Jackson at Delaware State have just begun.

The Buffs say bye-bye to one of the greatest running backs in football history, the lone man in NFL history with 12,000 rushing and 6,000 receiving yards and scored over 130 touchdowns. But in losing Faulk, Sanders grows his coaching tree but will now have the tough task of keeping up their much-improved run game. CU still has Sanders and Warren Sapp on staff, each a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Faulk is Southern’s fourth full-time head coach since 2021, when Jason Rollins was hired to replace Dawson Odums after that coach’s eight-year, 59-win run.

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