Shedeur Sanders didn’t try to make his first NFL start into something it wasn’t. He opened his postgame comments with the same relaxed tone he carried all week. “I’m here once again. How y’all doing? Chilling, relaxing, thankful.” That was the mood. No nerves. No panic.
“I felt very relaxed,” Sanders said. “And half of that comes from preparing, studying, and knowing I got God on my side. Throughout all that, I had no worries.”
The performance itself felt like confirmation. “I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot,” he said. “Six, seven months ago, I couldn’t tell you I’d be here…without God, nothing possible.”
He didn’t shy away from discussing the lead-up to this moment. The uneven path, the missed summer reps, the limited buildup. “Everybody starts [in] different places,” he said. “Just because I didn’t get the summer reps…it’s no excuse. You got to go out there and perform.”
MORE: Deion Sanders is not concerned about Julian Lewis’ redshirt
Then he addressed the part that gained the most attention. “A lot of people wanted to see me fail and it ain’t going to happen,” Sanders said. “It ain’t going to happen.”
He explained how the past six months changed him. “Since I went through everything the past six months, it led me to a whole different understanding,” he said. “This the first time I…never had stress…I did the work.”
MORE:10 coaches who could replace Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss
He talked about finally getting to show who he is after time spent adjusting behind the scenes. “Sometimes you have to compromise your personality,” he said. “I got an opportunity to show everybody who I really am.”
He credited the offensive line and coaches for helping create stability. “I’m thankful for the O linemen being able to take me under their wing,” he said.
And he understood the weight of the moment without making it larger than it needed to be. “You don’t know how surreal that feeling is,” he said. “We have a long way to go, a long way to grow. And I know it’s only one way and the only way is up.”
More college football news: