FOUNTAIN — Coach Prime stole a page from the gospel according to “Bear” Bryant to transform his mercenary misfits into a band of CU Buffalo brothers.

“You (go) on trips … so you can unite, so you can build loyalty, you can build love, so you can get to know one another, so these kids can trust us,” Deion Sanders said Thursday, after his players disbanded from practice at a high school a long 113 miles down the road from the University of Colorado campus.

During three years of the Prime experience, there has been much big talk and too few big W’s. By installing a revolving door in the Buffaloes’ locker room, where players and assistant coaches come and go on the regular, Sanders has transformed the football program into CU Later.

His 16-21 record at Colorado doesn’t merit his $10 million annual salary. Although Sanders boasts he’s too busy applying pressure to feel it, Prime hears the growing criticism, and I confessed to his face that some of the bashing has been delivered by me.

“For real? You’re joking. You? Not you,” Sanders said, jousting playfully at my gripes against his underwhelming results since taking over the Colorado program.

I made the trip to the wide-open prairie of southern Colorado, where Sanders took great pains and spared no expense to move the Buffaloes and a ton of football equipment to Camp Prime.

With the season opener at Georgia Tech looming Sept. 3, Sanders decided what the Buffaloes needed was to pack up and embark on a road trip for the opening week of preseason practice, with CU players bunking in bedrooms without air conditioning and eating chow that’s more mess-hall basic than gourmet delicious, while blocking, tackling and scuffling on the field at Fountain-Fort Carson High School.

It’s not exactly the Junction Boys, the legendary, unrelentingly hot and brutal summer camp that Bryant used to toughen the will and tighten the bond of his Texas A&M Aggies way back in 1954.

But it’s about as close to a football boot camp as you’ll find in 2026.

A year ago, during his first season without the benefit of Heisman winner Travis Hunter on his side and son Shedeur at quarterback, Colorado stumbled to a 2-4 start and scored a big upset against Iowa State, only to get trounced 53-7 by Utah in a loss so disheartening it appeared as if the Buffs quit on Sanders.

Of course, when you give a football roster an extreme makeover each and every season, there’s little time to develop team chemistry, much less a ride-or-die unity.

“It’s a revolving door in college football,” Sanders said.

“Remember when we first got (to CU) and you guys made a big deal of the (transfer) portal? Now everybody’s doing it, and I don’t see you attack them the same way you attacked our program in regards to the portal.”

So I asked Prime how to keep a team together during this free-for-all, every-dude-for-himself era of name, image and likeness riches in college football.

“Not if you’ve got money,” Sanders quipped. “I’m sorry I’m being honest with you, but I’m just being honest with you.”

The Buffs aren’t going to outspend LSU, which lured star offensive tackle Jordan Seaton away from Boulder after CU suffered through a 3-9 season.

And if quarterback Julian “JuJu” Lewis enjoys a breakout season as a redshirt freshman?

Teams with unlimited budgets will show him the money.

The shine is off Prime’s gold chains, because all his charisma can’t buy CU a conference championship.

“This is football. I’m really good at this. I can play this. I can coach this. I can do this,” Sanders said. “And if you don’t believe? Don’t believe. God bless you. I need that. I like that. You put me in my comfort zone there. I’d rather be booed than clapped for.”

In an era when loyalty is gone in the transfer portal, Sanders is no longer the only one to churn his roster, but he was the first one in the college game to treat players like disposable parts.

Well, how’s this for a radical thought?

For success built to last, maybe what these Buffs really need is the kind of love money can’t buy.

When the truth on the scoreboard looks grim, true football brothers don’t quit on each other.