Preseason camps throughout college football now are turning into de facto game-week preparation zones, with a handful of both Football Bowls Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision games kicking off later this week.
Clark Lea’s second Vanderbilt squad, for instance, already is in Hawaii preparing for the Commodores’ Saturday opener against the host Rainbow Warriors.
This also is the time of year where players’ schedules are perhaps most maxed out: Fall classes on college campuses throughout the United States are launching in numerous locales this week, which means the first time players are balancing classes with the camp grind.
It’s also a time in which Deion Sanders is revealing the class rules for his second full-season Jackson State Tigers’ squad -- and needling the outfit of his daughter, Shelomi -- upon classes starting Monday.
“School, we got school today, right? So I want you to listen to me clearly and succinctly,” Sanders tells the Tigers as they’re gathered inside JSU’s newly renovated team room. “No slides (sandals). No slides. No armpits exposed. No wifebeaters (tank-top shirts). Sit in the front of the classroom and be the perfect gentleman because when it comes down to it, and you need help, that professor is going to recall your character and who you’ve been consistently in that class.
“No slides, no sleeveless shirts, no armpits, none of that.”
Then, in a move that perhaps will resonate as among the biggest surprises at any point this season in college football, Deion Sanders channeled his inner Derek Dooley.
Seriously. Sanders emphasized good hygiene – shower discipline, in the eloquent parlance of Dooley – to his assembled players.
“Now, make sure you shower before you go to class,” Sanders ordered his players. “I don’t want to get a report that you was in some bull-junk in our apparel, representing us. Kids in the back of class making noise, he’s free-styling to the whole class while I was trying to teach it with a Jackson State football shirt on. Not going to happen. When it gets back to me, it’s going to get back to your (position) coaches first, and then it’s going to get back to me. When it gets back to me, it’s going to be a problem.”
Sanders then recapped the guidelines and challenged both his players as well as graduate-assistant coaches.
“No slides. No arms, shoulders exposed; no armpits,” Sanders said. “G.A.s, that’s on you. Get your groups, get to those classrooms and make sure they’re in there doing what they’re supposed to do.
“G.A.s, that’s on you; get their schedules and make sure you check on them.”
John Brice has spent more than two decades covering football at all levels. Primarily focusing on the collegiate ranks in the SEC, including deep coverage of the Tennessee Vols' program & work as a sideline reporter & TV analyst, plus coverage on the Notre Dame & Ohio State beats, Brice has seen about every kind of story. But he's still looking to tell the really good stories, at least when he isn't traveling with his wife.
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