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Deion Sanders is the biggest story in college football right now. Even after being handed the first loss of the season at the hands of nationally ranked Oregon (42-6), everyone still wants to know what Coach Prime and the Colorado Buffaloes are doing next.

A big part of Sanders' appeal is his no-nonsense approach to coaching and setting expectations for his players. While some might be repelled by his bluntness, those that do play for him seem fiercely loyal.

For Chad Biagini, president of Nolan Partners, a sports and entertainment executive search company, the Colorado players remind him of investment bankers. He says their willingness to enter a demanding environment where expectations are sky-high — where they know they'll be pushed to the limit — is a mindset similar to banking pros.

"The best cultures are the ones where everybody knows what they signed up for," he told Insider in a recent interview. "There will be some athletes who love this style. Just like there are some executives who love certain styles — investment banking, power law firms. Working 80 hours a week is not right for everybody, but some people live and breathe and thrive within that culture."

He continued: "As long as the values and the culture are obvious enough to the people who are signing up to be a part of it, they can work phenomenally well."

Sanders certainly isn't for everyone. Just because someone like him is exciting and energetic "doesn't actually mean that they're going to fit your culture and your values," Chad Biagini told Insider.

Especially in a high stakes environment, "it's really easy when someone's a big personality, to be tempted to skip on the formality and to hire the person because you're excited by their high profile," he said.

According to Biagini, those who were involved in hiring Sanders needed to do the following: know who was being hired, set firm parameters around what the work environment would look like, stress the need for adaptability, and give the right amount of decision-making latitude — with room for challenges.

"I think it's important for the board, or in this case an athletic director, to ask direct questions around 'How you'll feel when I do challenge you? And how have you approached supervisors when they challenged you in the past?'"

That's why it's so important to know what a team, or company's, culture is, Biagini said.

"What do we stand for? And actually communicating that to the people you're trying to bring on board so that they are walking in eyes wide open," he continued. "Do they know what that actually means? They might understand it in theory, but it's actually quite different in practice."

He said it's common that people get accepted into a prestigious school and drop out because it was harder than what they thought they signed up for.

As it pertains to Sanders, any athlete considering playing under him needs to "get alignment and to make sure that they're asking honest questions of themselves," Biagini said.