FIRST TAKE | Stephen A. Smith & Paul Finebaum SLAMS 'hypocrite' Deion Sanders for banning reporter

and there he is Paul fine bomb Paul good morning I got a quick take for you let's kick it off the college football season oh there we go hi everybody what's up Mr fine bom what's going on my man Stephen hey yes sir all right let's get into it guys the college football SE kicked off with a shocker as 10th ranked FSU got upset by Georgia Tech thanks to a 44 yard game-winning field goal As Time expired to secure the 24-21 win Paul is this loss a big deal by Florida State it is a big deal Molly because Florida State's the team that was uh crying all the way into the off season about how it got snubbed last year and then it went out and lost by 60 in the ball game so they needed to gain back some public attention and they failed to do it instead they they really were embarrassed by a good team but by no means a great team they got out played across the board and their path to the playoffs now is complicated it's a different world you you don't get knocked out because of one loss but in the ACC there are one down they still have to deal with the likes of Clemson and and of course uh Miami so I I think I think it's problematic they also have Notre Dame on the road so I think their path to the playoff has gotten very very difficult all right we'll keep it rolling here and uh going to Colorado now where the University of Colorado has informed The Denver Post that coach Deion Sanders will no longer answer questions from columnist Sean Keeler Colorado attributed the decision to a series of sustained personal attacks and keeler's coverage of to the program and this comes just weeks after Prime had took issue with the local CBS affiliate reporter after a story published by CBS coach Prime had this exchange with another media member Saturday if I ask a negative question will you not answer them anymore that's being negative right now like you take an approach that I'm going to be negative I'm I'm not negative to anybody in here I will challenge you and ask you why or where is this coming from so I'm not I'm not built like that I'm not built to hate I'm not a hateful guy I'm not a I I come with love I think any if anybody in here has had encounters with me I don't come with the bull junk I come with the peace and the joy now when you show me where you stand I might have to change that a little bit so I'm not going to match your ignorance all right uh Shay you're up first any issue with how Dion handled that well maybe not that particular guy but there's this one column it's John Keeler he used the phrase false profit deposition Dion Planet Prime Bruce Lee of BS Dion Kool-Aid and circus that's personal if you want to talk about my program if you want to say I'm not doing a good job of coaching if you want to say that I don't I don't do a good job of disciplin my players and my players are not disciplined and they're not playing foot the game the right way I can live with that but what what does these personal attacks have to do with my program why are you you attacking me personally okay I understand that my Persona preceded me you know he got the name the name Prime and that's what people refer him they call him Coach Prime and I get all of that but this notion that I should be allowed to because I'm in a position I'm a head coach and I should let people talk take personal attacks at me N I ain't going to deal with that if you want to talk about my program okay that's fine we're not as good as we thought we were we're not as good as we're supposed to be my players Dion is not doing a good job of coaching these players because they're still making the same mistake week in and week out so that shows me if you want to say they lack discipline all these penalties I don't see where they've gotten any better from last year I can live with all of those harsh critiques but when you start to attack me personally nah I'm not going to answer your questions I'm just going to keep it moving on I'll let someone else go and they can ask me a question that some people might deem negative but I understand that comes along with the territory but you attacking me personally that don't come along with this Territory go ahead Paul Shannon we can all quibble about the personal attacks and that's fair everybody comes from a different perspective I don't I haven't read a lot from this columnist so I don't I don't know the context uh exactly why he said some of the things that he did but let's not forget that Dion Sanders is a gigantic figure this isn't just some normal football coach at State you uh he's a larger than life personality that that he has encouraged and enhanced and made a fortune off of throughout his career and to take nothing away from one of the most iconic athletes ever to play college football pro football NFL football you name it but he's in a different situation now he's selling Colorado on his name he's selling it on Sizzle because it's not a football tradition it's not a football power it's not some place that most of us really care about but one of the few people who who does care about it is this guy that writes for the local newspaper and to publicly go after him I think is a mistake he doesn't have to like it why doesn't he just ignore it that's uh that's how it usually works Stephen A been there in his career as a writer I've been there many times and you just you shut the guy out you don't you don't turn him into the story and that's my biggest mistake is somebody who understands the media like like coach Prime why would he do this what's the point and and here we are we're talking about him maybe that's part of it but it's in a very negative and dysfunctional way Stephen A Shannon before you you before you chime in let me say this you know goad last year when Prime arrived at Buffalo yeah uh obviously Shannon and I were you know we weren't at the TCU game uh but we was at the home we were at the home opener then we took first take there and we did the show from there rooting for Dion I've known Dion for years he's a friend and a brother got a lot of love for him I do not agree with how he's handled this situation I do not agree with how the Colorado program has handled this situation and quite frankly I'm a bit disappointed because you have to have thicker skin than that if you don't want to talk to the reporter Shannon don't talk to the reporter but to have the program putting out a release announcing that we're not going to take questions as a program from this guy is utterly ridiculous you started off three and one you beat TC put Paul and Shannon back up there I don't want to see just me I want to see the both of them as well TCU was the national runner up the year before Colorado opens the season in a prime time Deion Sanders era you beat them and what did you do Post conference do you believe do you believe and he kept asking that question and he wanted to hear the reporter say Do you believe and then he shooted him off okay so what happens thereafter you win two more games you start off three and 0 the rest of the way you lost six straight you lose seven of eight and obviously you're going to have critics people who were lining up remember that pre-game motivational speech coach Lanning at Oregon did before they romped Colorado on National Television Shannon and remember how he said you remember he took a direct shot at Prime Time Deon Sayers he was saying yo you understand I'm saying we ain't trying to win the headlines we going to win out on the field and then they went and they slaughtered them and so we have to take we have to take that into account now prime time and I believe in him I believe in him as a coach I damn sure believe in him as a person you know and I know I I've known him for over two decades I know that his purpose is higher than just winning football games but he's also he also somebody that has to understand winning football games that's where it has to start because everything else in terms of the media nobody wants to hear all of that you you you don't want it's listen when we got on LeBron j i I bring up LeBron James for this one thing what did I used to get on LeBron James about Shannon what did I used to get on LeBron James about if he did great it was fantastic he soak it all in and when he had a bad night well I'm just trying to be a role model to the kids and and they used to drive me nuts it's like can we stick to basketball we we not we're not questioning your character we're not doing it let's stay right where it is well now we fast forward and we think about somebody like Prime Time and you're talking about not being negative or whatever well Prime i i i this is my brother I I love him and I believe in him and I agree and I know where he's coming from but there is evidence where you've gone against the media there is evidence when you've been negative towards the media because they've been negative towards you maybe not as the head coach in Colorado but as a player you were that way over the years you were that that way last year when you beat TCU and you were shoing folks off you were that way you can't then turn around because of a columnist who's been considered somebody I don't know uh uh uh Mr Keila at all I don't know I don't know much about his work Sean Keeler for The Denver Post I'm not casting any asures on him but there are people in the media out there that said he has been hypocritical and he has been accused of being a shock jock etc etc if anybody's supposed to know how to deal with that it's supposed to be prime time wait let me let me challenge you on one thing though Stephen I I don't think we need to worry about whether Prime can handle the media nobody has thicker skin than Prime I think there's another angle here I think he's intentionally wanting to put the guy on blast so people see it and they know what the deal is I don't think it's that Prime can't take the negative press I think his intention is to let people see what this guy is all about and his deal I'm I'm not implying that he can't take it but the point is that don't mean you handled it right you got a program that put out a press release about exiling the reporter yeah wait a minute Paul has been a reporter for years I've been a reporter for decades that doesn't happen I'm just saying maybe he's showing his power if if a Coach doesn't talk listen nobody had more power than Nick Sabin okay Nick Sabin you didn't hear Alabama is you saw Nick San at the podium going off that's what you saw or you saw him dismissing somebody program sort of coming to your rescue with a bunch of stuff because now you put this guy in the spotlight and now we get to say okay what exactly is it that he said now I understand what you said Shannon and you're absolutely right it does seem a bit extreme etc etc but I would remind everybody this is not a reporter he's a columnist a columnist has the license to editorialize and express their opinion in the newspaper industry you're talking to a former columnist this is the license that we have that reporters don't have so his opinion no matter how incendiary no matter how put offish or whatever it is it's actually his right and his job according to the Denver Post to do that I get it I'm not saying it's right or wrong I'm just saying that Dion's no dummy and he's strategic he's been in this game a long time so he knew what the Fallout would be you can say that but I say if Dion did it himself yeah but for the program to put out a release saying this is what we're doing to that reporter the program now looks very very bad Dion could have just said no I ain't talking to you and left it at that but see and that's what the program did the program provided the shield because then everybody would have beat him up although we do know where this is coming from because at the end of the day the program is not going to do a whole lot without the blessings of of prime and so when time like basically like okay and then he goes into this uh uh he gets into it with this other guy he says well if I'm critical of you I don't have a problem with you being critical of me I don't have a problem of other coaches taking shots at my program because that's what you're supposed to do because you we're always recruiting Stephen A and Paul you know that so no matter what transpired even during the course of the game I'm recruiting when I'm when I'm at the press conference I'm recruiting but when you start taking personal shots I mean to call a man a false prophet to call a man to be a a Bru Lee of BS what does that got to do what does that have to do with the program Paul I just want you to know I just want to know what does that have to do with my coaching what do that have to do with my ex of the nose Shannon first of all we're talking about a guy that writes for The Denver Post I I mean it's not like this isn't 1985 or 95 when Stephen A and I were writing columns this is 2024 nobody reads these Publications anymore this is not even an important entity that that Prime has now elevated his words I I doubt half you know more than 3,000 people in Denver even wrote read those columns obviously uh Dion did and and that's whole that's the whole point uh he's picking on some little guy for no reason at all and therefore he's coming off as a big bully and whe you guys know him a million times better than I do I know him I respect him I like him I admire him but he still looks like a bully to most people who who are getting a headline of this across the country I mean we're discussing it on the number one sport show in America not because of anything Prime has done on the field because quite frankly he hasn't done very much off the field he's lost most of his team uh from last year and and he's he's replaced them hopefully very well but but instead he's in he's in a food fight with some guy that doesn't even [Music] matter for [Music] in up [Music] [Laughter] in look I look [Music] you for [Music] that [Music] in look 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