OK Sports

The U.S. women’s national soccer team and the University of Colorado football team both failed on the field recently, but each have their own sports docuseries. Like they’re teams, these shows are imperfect but very watchable.

Prime Time

If you follow college football even cursorily, you know that the University of Colorado hired a new coach prior to this past season. Deion Sanders, better known as Coach Prime or simply Prime, played in the NFL and Major League Baseball. After a short, successful stint at Jackson State, Prime took over the higher-level Colorado Buffaloes with his sons, two of whom are players. A third son handles the team’s social media.

Colorado football was not a safe move. The Buffs have been in the toilet for years. The school is paying Prime handsomely to change this–pronto. During a much-publicized introductory team meeting, he essentially says adios, telling the veteran Buffalo players to enter the transfer portal and go elsewhere. 

Prime is bringing his studs to The Rockies! 

Episodes such as this are exactly why Coach Prime is a compelling watch. It’s a window into the reality of big-time college athletics. Players come and go as if colleges are youth hostels, and the schools compensate many of them under the auspices of NIL (Name Image and Likeness). Colorado players have their social media IDs on the back of their practice jerseys. Are they student-athletes? Please! I’m four episodes in, no one has cracked a book, not even a playbook. (The series briefly interviews a black Colorado professor.) It briefly touches on race, but tdoesn’t dwell on this or much of anything, including wide receiver’s Jimmy Horn Jr.’s incarcerated father. If you want intensive profiles, check out the stellar Last Chance U.

However, mere glimpses into this wannabe football factory are often golden. During a meeting, an assistant coach says that he craves “Mandingo warriors” for his linebacking core. I enjoyed the segment on the team’s cuisine. Prime has mandated that the menu be more southern, so the players can feel more at home.

No doubt, as the title suggests, this is Prime’s game. In addition to coaching the team in front of the cameras, he’s dealing with serious medical issues, specifically blood clotting, which has caused him to lose a few toes. We witness his sometimes graphic medical treatment. Prime seems to spend as much time with medical aides as assistant coaches.  

Bad soccer 

Former U.S. player turned broadcaster Carli Lloyd is the star of Under Pressure, which chronicles the U.S. women’s disappointing 2023 World Cup non-run. Most memorably, she ripped the team for taking selfies after a meh outing. Lloyd wants more savage, less Kardashian. Indeed, the entire tournament was a spectacular disappointment for the Americans. In short, they were going for a World Cup three-peat, and they got bupkis. In fact, they could barely score and won one measly game (Vietnam), barely limping out of their group stage. 

A docuseries offers a few theories on how this disaster transpired:

The U.S. has gotten worse, and the rest of the world has gotten better. The U.S. didn’t practice enough together and had no chemistry. Lastly, perhaps the most popular, the U.S.’s coach, Vlatko Andonovski, who has an aversion to substituting, wasn’t up for the challenge. Sure, blame Vlatko, but the doc doesn’t offer any suggestions–besides subbing–on what the team should’ve done differently. There’s little or no discussion of strategy.

The doc does chronicle the long-distance relationship between U.S. substitute Kristie Mewis and her Australian girlfriend, Sam Kerr, who’s also competing in the World Cup for Australia. I got a little tingly inside watching, but this is what I watch Love Is Blind for. As far as the outspoken veteran, Megan Rapinoe, we see a lot of her flamboyant hair and glasses and a few press conferences but not much else. Perhaps she didn’t offer access.

Fans of U.S. soccer, particularly women’s soccer, will certainly enjoy the behind-the-scenes peeks of Under Pressure. As far as the U.S. squad, it will be interesting to see how they pivot from this poor showing and perform in the upcoming Olympics.