Deion Sanders plays the portal victim game with, of all schools, Virginia

Deion Sanders routinely poaches players from other schools from the transfer portal, but when somebody tries to poach one of his guys, watch out.

“Carter got offered a bag. What’s the school that offered you the bag? Virginia. Virginia, you got to stop,” the Colorado coach said, in a made-for-social-media video that has, predictably, gone viral, referencing safety Carter Stoutmire as the “Carter” in question.

The next words out of Sanders’s mouth made no sense.

“I’ll let you have one, I ain’t say nothing about it. Come on, now. Come on. We let you have one, I ain’t say nothing about it,” Sanders said, raising the question.

I’ll let you have one, and say nothing about it?

Who would the “one” be that Sanders “let” Virginia “have,” and he said “nothing about it”?

Not seeing anybody on the UVA Football roster that previously played at Colorado, we’ll have to let that one remain a mystery.

Regarding Stoutmire, a 5’11”, 205-pound junior, nothing remarkable there – he was a three-star prep recruit from Plano, Texas, who had offers out of high school from a mix of mostly mid-tier Power 4s and the likes of Memphis and North Texas.

Diving into his Pro Football Focus profile, he got a 72.4 season grade in 2024 – was on the field for 526 snaps, with 41 tackles, good numbers in pass coverage (13 receptions on 25 targets, six pass breakups).

He’d be a good get if he was on the portal.

And Virginia coach Tony Elliott has made it known that he’s on the lookout for defensive backs.

I highly doubt, though, that anybody from Virginia is out there just randomly contacting guys who aren’t thinking of getting into the portal to offer them “bags,” as Sanders is suggesting.

Almost certainly what happened here: Stoutmire’s people have been shopping him around, UVA came back with the best money offer, Stoutmire went to Sanders with the offer, trying to get more money out of Colorado.

That’s how this works.

As Deion Sanders well knows.

The dumb part of this is Sanders going public with an accusation about another school trying to poach one of his guys.

This from a guy who poached 53 players off the portal in 2023, 34 in 2024 and has 17 transfers already coming in for 2025, with Sanders promising more on the way.

This guy wants to play the victim now?

I’ll quote #TeamAFP’s Scott German here in the close: if Deion is mad at us, that means we’re doing something right.