Highly-Touted Colorado DB Cormani McClain Entering Transfer Portal After Interesting Year Under Deion Sanders

Colorado has fallen victim to the transfer portal, while this might turn out to be a mutual parting of the ways for Cormani McClain and Deion Sanders. 

According to Cormani McClain, he will be entering the transfer portal. The former No.1 cornerback in the country from the 2023 recruiting class headed to Colorado with big aspirations for himself and the Buffaloes staff. Highly talented, McClain surprised everyone when he decided to join Sanders in Colorado, giving them another weapon alongside Travis Hunter. 

But things did not go according to plan at the start of the 2023 season. McClain was absent from the starting rotation and questions began to arise about his standing on the Colorado football team. His first snaps of the season came late in the blowout loss to Oregon, and Deion Sanders laid it all out as to why McClain had not cracked the starting rotation. 

"He's got to prepare," Deion Sanders said in September of last season. "Study, prepare, be on time for meetings, show up to the darn meetings, understand what we're doing as a scheme, want to play this game, desire to play this game, desire to be the best in this game, at practice, in the film room, and in your own free time." 

McClain ended up starting just four games during his freshman season at Colorado, appearing in a total of nine games total. 

After starting for Colorado against Arizona later in the season, McClain was praised by Deion Sanders for understanding the expectations that come with being a player worthy enough to start for the Buffaloes. 

"He’s been a lot more focused," Sanders said after the loss to Arizona. "A lot more understanding of the expectation and what we want from him — that we’ve challenged him tremendously all year long. He stood up to the task over the last, probably, week and a half. I’m really, really proud of Cormani. I really am."

BOULDER, Colo. - Cornerback Cormani McClain of the Colorado Buffaloes celebrates a pass defended in the end zone in the third quarter against the USC Trojans at Folsom Field on September 30, 2023. (Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images)

Earlier this Spring, as Colorado continued to work towards its spring game and preparing for the 2024 season, DB's coach Kevin Mathis explained that McClain was getting back into shape. 

"Cormani came back the other day. He was out there running today. He got to get back in shape. Once he does that, once he finishes his running, he’ll be back in football," Mathis said at the time. 

Now, it looks as though Cormani McClain will be suiting up for another team in 2024, where he will have four years of eligibility left. 

In this case, the only two people who know what truly happened are Deion Sanders and McClain, but if we're reading the tea-leaves, this feels like a mutual parting. 

Either way, Colorado just lost one of its key components of the 2023 class, and will now look to fill that void in the transfer portal.