Sports Illustrated has named Colorado coach Deion Sanders its “2023 Sportsperson of the Year,” and the early reaction has been serious backlash.

That’s what you get from a college football-crazy audience who saw the Buffaloes start with a huge win over TCU only to stumble to a 4-8 start, finishing last in the Pac-12 and closing the regular season with six straight losses.

SI explained the decision was about more than wins, something it called the Prime Effect. The publication cited the following numbers:

• First-year applications are up 26.4 percent
• Black applications are up 80.6 percent
• Nonresident applications are up 29.8 percent
• International applications are up 38.4 percent.

However, it is also pointed out that those numbers can’t be “definitively linked to Sanders.”

However, September sales at the school’s online team store were up 2,544 percent over the same month in 2022, per the report. And, of course, Colorado sold out every home game this season, a first in the program’s history. It was a season, SI pointed to, that saw Colorado in five of the 13 most-watched games of the season.

The Prime Effect also impacted the university in other ways. Per the report, one of Colorado’s Nobel laureate was recruiting a nationally acclaimed scientist The chemist agreed to an interview on the condition she got to meet Sanders.

This is the seventh time Sanders has appeared on the cover, five times as a player and one time when he was coach at Jackson State.

Check out the full report here.

Mark Heim is a reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim. He can be heard on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5 FM in Mobile or on the free Sound of Mobile App from 6 to 9 a.m. daily.