When high school recruits opened their Colorado scholarship offers in August, they didn’t find the usual formal letters. Instead, they discovered something that made them feel like they’d already made it: personalized trading cards featuring themselves alongside cards of Coach Prime’s NFL coaching staff. The person behind this brilliant idea knew exactly how to capture a teenager’s imagination.
How Did Colorado’s Derek Marckel Turn Recruiting Into a Trading Card Experience?
Senior art director Derek Marckel masterminded Colorado’s trading card offer letters. As Marckel explained in a YouTube interview with BuffStampede Radio, he considers three things when creating offer letters: “How do you appeal to a 17-year-old kid? How do you market the program? And how do you market Coach Prime?”
The inspiration came naturally, given the program’s NFL connections. “My head immediately went to football cards because we’ve got all this NFL experience. Most of our coaches have played in the NFL, coaching NFL in some capacity. So that’s a cool way to package it all together and then make it relate to a 17-year-old kid and show the cards of all the coaches that have done it and say, ‘hey, you can do this too,’” he shared.
This approach works because most teenagers grew up collecting sports cards and understand what they represent. When recruits see their own name and photo on a trading card, it makes them feel like they’re already part of something special.
The project demanded intense dedication from Marckel, who pulled late nights to meet the tight deadline. Ghost Mail, the company that prints offer letters for schools nationwide, created a compressed timeline that pushed the creative team to their limits.
Each recruit received a custom tri-fold folder containing nineteen professional-quality trading cards. One card featured the recruits themselves in Colorado gear, while eighteen others showcased Coach Prime’s NFL-veteran coaching staff and former Buffaloes stars.
The cards matched the quality of actual Topps trading cards, highlighting the coaching staff’s collective 160 years of NFL experience.
What Was the Reaction When Recruits Opened These Packages?
When four-star cornerback Preston Ashley posted his unboxing video on social media in August, it gave everyone a clear look at the project’s impact.
Officially Offical🦬!! #SkoBuffs pic.twitter.com/waGwlHwujc
— Preston Ashley (@AshleyBallers) August 2, 2025
Ashley wasn’t the only one excited about the final product. The recruiting staff loved what they saw when the cards arrived at Colorado. Marckel said coaches were running into his office to see the cards, and the whole scene felt like Christmas Day, with everyone excited to check out the finished work.
Marckel’s trading card concept proved that the best recruiting tools sometimes come from understanding what teenagers care about. His creative approach turned a simple offer letter into something recruits want to keep forever.