Sanders' 1954 UCLA team was named national champions by the Coaches Poll and the Football Writers Association of America.

Sanders also attended Central High School in Nashville and graduated from Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia.

Sanders got his first head coaching position at Riverside Military Academy, leading its 1936 team to an undefeated season.

As head coach of the Bruins, Sanders led them to four Top 10 national rankings, three Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) titles, two Rose Bowls (1953 and 1955 seasons), and a 6–3 record over arch-rival USC.

Technically, UCLA should have played in three straight Rose Bowls from 1953 to 1955, but the PCC's recent "no-repeat" rule denied UCLA's best team, and one of the finest in college football history (leading the country in both offense and defense) from confronting an undefeated Ohio State in the Rose Bowl to unify the national championship on the field.

[8] The 1954 Bruins and 1957 Oregon State Beavers were the only PCC teams impacted by the rule, which went into effect after California lost its third consecutive Rose Bowl in January 1951.

Sanders said these changes also made it harder for opponents to scout his Bruins on the grainy black and white game films of the time.

Sanders appeared as a contestant on the November 18, 1954 episode of the television quiz program You Bet Your Life, hosted by Groucho Marx.

[11] Shortly before the 1958 season, Sanders died suddenly of a heart attack in a Los Angeles hotel room on August 14.

[17] Sanders' assistant George W. Dickerson succeeded him on an interim basis for the first three games of the Bruins' 1958 season, before suffering a nervous breakdown.

In 1950, at a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo physical education workshop, Sanders told his group: "Men, I'll be honest.

While at UCLA, another famous quote was attributed to Sanders regarding the UCLA–USC rivalry, "Beating 'SC is not a matter of life or death, it's more important than that.