Ex-WSU QB Cam Ward clashes with Shedur Sanders after workout: ‘Y’all can’t handle that heat’

Football might be America’s favorite pastime, but the sport is much more raw behind the scenes than when dressed up for national TV.

Verbal (and sometimes physical) jousting before, during or after practice, or around the water cooler, is common among players whose egos are among the reasons they became stars in the first place.

That was the case last week when University of Miami quarterback Cam Ward (after declaring for the 2024 NFL draft following two seasons at Washington State yet remained in college and transferred to “The U”) confronted Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders – son of NFL Hall of Fame DB and Colorado head coach Deion Sanders – and ridiculed him after a poor workout featuring the two stars and Virginia Tech quarterback Kyron Drones.

Here’s the exchange, save several expletives, which took place on Independence Day, courtesy of a video from Canes Today, via Dov Kleiman on X:

CW: First y’all start getting water. When y’all start getting on the phones?

SS: What you mean? I can’t stay hydrated, man?

CW: You know we don’t get water. Y’all can’t handle that heat. That’s what it is. It’s cool though. That’s your team.

SS: You live out here, bro.

CW: That don’t mean nothing.

SS: You come throw where I’m at.

CW: I’ve been up there. It’s colder.

(paused – likely because he realized midsentence that it’s harder to throw in cold weather)

I don’t think y’all got better today. I don’t think you got better today.

SS: You need to be on my schedule.

Player in the background: You the whole reason we’re here late (toward Cam Ward).

CW: I might have been the reason we was late, but I got better.

SS: OK, and I’m gonna get better tomorrow and Saturday. Haha.

CW: We throwing comebacks and you just lofting it, you placing it, you not throwing it. Come on, man.

Shedeur is college football’s most polarizing player. Either you love him or hate him, and Ward clearly is not fond of Deion’s second-youngest son.

Here’s to hoping the competitive QBs use the banter as motivation next season, and earn their way onto NFL teams where each can flaunt their gifts in 2025.

Projections have Sanders being drafted anywhere from first overall to the draft’s middle rounds in 2025 based on what he does behind a much-improved (on paper, at least) offensive line in Boulder next fall.

Meanwhile, Ward is viewed as a top-10 quarterback heading into next fall, who – if he can thrive in a new environment down south and due to his arm talent and athleticism despite a history of poor decision-making – could woo a team to take him in the first round.

Both players rose to the helm of Power Five programs despite beginning their careers at the FCS level.