by Jordan Beckley
After a summer long media obsession about Deion, it’s the play of his son Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter and the rest of the Buffs that have made all of the National attention justified.
“Do you believe now?”
Coach Prime repeatedly asked that to the reporters who doubted him in his post game press conference after Colorado’s week 1 upset of #17 TCU in Fort Worth. Deion Sanders has been famous for his media antics his whole career and now he is certainly out to prove his haters in the field wrong. However, it’s his son Shedeur that is backing up Deion’s media antics.
Shedeur Sanders has been a certified star through two weeks. In week 1, Sanders threw the ball an incredible 47 times for a school record 510 yards and 4 Touchdowns. He broke the record in his debut with the most passing yards in Colorado history by about 100 yards against a program who played for a National Championship the year prior.
How does he follow that up? Shedeur threw 41 times for 393 yards and accounted for 3 TDs against a difficult Nebraska Defense. Sanders and the rest of the Buff offense wore down a very tough Cornhusker defense scoring 36 points in the last 35 minutes of the game.
The Buffaloes are now 2-0 with wins over two power conference teams. They’ve done so in maybe the most entertaining way possible too. An unsung hero for Colorado has been OC Sean Lewis, who left his head coaching job at Kent State to become Deion’s offensive coordinator. Lewis has created a quick action offense that has powered Colorado to 45 points and 36 points in the first two weeks. Sanders has been great, but Lewis has designed a pass-happy offense filled with options that has propelled Sanders into the Heisman race.
The offense has been a showcase for many other talented players too. Dylan Edwards is a true freshman running back who had 150+ total yards and 4 touchdowns (3 of them receiving) in week 1. Xavier Weaver has had 16 catches for 288 yards receiving in two games. Perhaps the most impressive player though has been Travis Hunter, who will apparently just be playing every snap this College Football season on offense and defense with over 250 to his name so far.
Hunter is a game breaking wideout capable of this (almost) catch in the endzone, juking players into oblivion on this play, and on defense is a ball-hawking menace who had this mind bending interception in Week 1.
Much was made this offseason about Coach Sanders and his coaching style. Coach Prime stripped the Colorado roster down for parts and rebuilt it almost entirely with new recruits and transfers. Now that his style is working there will be plenty of segments about how repeatable this team building strategy is, what other former player’s are the next Deion Sanders, is Colorado a CFP contender and other media garbage.
What will get lost is that Colorado is genuinely good. Shedeur Sanders is definitively one of the best quarterbacks in the nation. The Buffs offense just passed the test against a “real defense” after people didn’t believe it against the TCU defense. Travis Hunter is a player we have never seen before. Even Colorado’s defense proved themselves this weekend too.
The Buffs held Nebraska scoreless through the first half, constantly stepping up with stops while their offense stalled early. It kept going as the Cornhuskers only had 7 points after 55 minutes of game time.
The media circus blinded me to Deion and Colorado. I couldn’t believe that Fox Sports was going to take Big Noon Kickoff to their games the first two weeks of the season. Now, College Gameday is going to be there for Colorado vs. Colorado State next week which is insane.
The reality is that the attention is all earned now. The Buffaloes play an amazing and thrilling brand of football with two of the best athletes in the game with Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter. They have two wins against real power 5 opponents. This isn’t luck or an easy schedule.
Colorado has been proving the doubters wrong. They were 21 point dogs to TCU and won. People kept betting Nebraska and moved the line from Colorado -3.5 to -2.5. The Buffs won by 22.
The doubters will start to move their goal posts here soon and try to minimize what the Buffaloes are doing. Two weeks ago they said Coach Prime wouldn’t win a game. Two weeks from now they will try and critique Colorado for losing to a Top 10 team in the country.
With how braggadocious Coach Prime is, people will be so excited to dunk on him in their first loss. It doesn’t matter though. If Colorado goes 6-6 that is still 5 wins better than last year. There won’t be many coaches who improve by 5 wins in the Power 5.
It doesn’t matter if Colorado loses to Oregon in two weeks and then loses again to USC after that. It is absolutely incredible that Colorado has turned it around like this in one offseason. The fact that they are ranked nationally and are a relevant team in what should be the best conference in College Football is a serious achievement.
On Monday morning there will be some awful segments on the recap shows like, “Is Saban Washed? Is it time to fire Jimbo Fisher? Is Texas the National Title favorite?” and so on. In front of all of those segments will be Colorado, Deion and Shedeur as the lead. And guess what? Colorado has earned it.
The Buffaloes aren’t the best team in College Football. They just have the most entertaining coach, quarterback, skill player, offense and best story in the country.
Coach Prime has made me a believer. I can’t wait to watch the rest of their games this year. You should too.