Deion Sanders Teases Hire of Former NFL Coach at Jackson State

Jackson State football coach Deion Sanders may be adding a former NFL coach to his staff in the near future. 

“Coach Prime” shared a video on Twitter Tuesday, teasing that ex-Vikings coach Mike Zimmer might be joining the program. In the clip, Zimmer is shown speaking to the Tigers players during a team meeting, though it’s unclear exactly when and in what capacity. 

The former Vikings coach already has strong connections with Sanders and with the Jackson State team. He was defensive backs coach with the Cowboys from 1995–99 and won Super Bowl XXX alongside Sanders after the ’95 season.

Additionally, Sanders hired Zimmer’s nephew, Andrew, earlier the offseason to serve as an analyst for the Tigers.

“I’m grateful that Coach Prime was willing to bring me here to help this team win football games,” Andrew Zimmer said in a press release at the time. “I’m excited to be around a winning team and see what a winning team looks like and help bring the program to another championship season.”

As of Tuesday, Jackson State had not confirmed Mike Zimmer’s hiring in any capacity. 

Zimmer, a defensive specialist, would bring over 43 years of football coaching experience at the college and NFL levels to Sanders’s program. He last spent eight years as the head coach of the Vikings, where he posted a 74–59–1 (.556) record and made the playoffs three times, including a trip to the NFC championship game in 2017.

The Vikings fired Zimmer at the end of the 2021 campaign, following a second consecutive losing season.