On the eve of his fourth spring football season at Colorado, coach Deion Sanders has lost another one of his top assistant coaches.
This time defensive coordinator Robert Livingston has left to take an assistant coaching job with the NFL’s Denver Broncos. He will be replaced by former Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Chris Marve, who already was on staff as the team’s new linebackers coach. The change was confirmed on Feb. 25 by Thee Pregame Network, one of Sanders’ favored YouTube channels.
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The promotion of Marve means Colorado will have a Black head coach (Sanders), Black defensive coordinator (Marve) and Black offensive coordinator (Brennan Marion) — a breakthrough in a sport where there weren’t any Black head coaches in major college football until 1979, 110 years after the start of it.
There are 13 Black head coaches in major college football in 2026 but none have offensive and defensive coordinators who also are Black, according to USA TODAY Sports research. It's not clear how many other times this has happened at the highest level of college football, if ever.
