Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes have found a new defensive coordinator.
On Wednesday night, BuffZone confirmed through a source that Sanders and CU have completed a deal to hire Cincinnati Bengals secondary coach Robert Livingston to run the Buffs’ defense.
Ian Rapoport of NFL.com was the first to report that Livingston was in Boulder on Wednesday and that the Buffs were expected to hire him as coordinator. A deal was done by Wednesday night.
Livingston replaces Charles Kelly, who left CU in late December to take a position with Auburn, his alma mater.
Livingston has spent the last 12 seasons with the Bengals, including the last eight as the secondary coach.
A native of Hendersonville, N.C., Livingston is a graduate of William & Mary, where he played safety from 2007-09.
Immediately after his playing career, Livingston got into coaching. He was assistant coach at Furman, working with the safeties, in 2010, and then worked as a defensive quality control coach at Vanderbilt in 2011.
In 2012, Livingston was hired by the Bengals as a scout and spent three years scouting defensive backs, mainly in the southeast. In 2015, Livingston began working on the field with the secondary, as a special teams assistant an in quality control. He then received the title of secondary coach in 2016 and has been in that role for the past eight seasons.
Among the many players Livingston has coached with the Bengals is Adam “Pacman” Jones, who is a close friend of Sanders. He helped Jones get to the Pro Bowl in 2015.
In recent years, Livingston has worked with Bengals safeties Jessie Bates III and Vonn Bell, who have been impact players for Cincinnati during the past few seasons. Bates was second-team All-Pro in 2020 and 2023.
Notable
Also on Wednesday, CU announced that it has decided to change its homecoming game to Sept. 21 against Baylor. It had previously been announced that the Oct. 12 game against Kansas State would be homecoming. The change was made “to coincide with the University of Colorado Boulder’s return to its Big 12 roots,” CU said in a press release. The Baylor game is the Big 12 opener for the Buffs.
