Colorado’s Deion Sanders given unclear future outlook after 53-7 Utah loss as Arizona, WVU loom for Buffs originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Colorado Buffaloes football coach Deion Sanders suffered the worst loss of his collegiate career on Saturday, getting the brakes beaten off his program by the Utah Utes 56-7 at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
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Where Coach Prime and Co. go from there is a question mark. CU was coming off its most impressive win of the season, a 24-17 upset over the Iowa State Cyclones at Folsom Field, before the embarrassing setback in Salt Lake City.
The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel wasn’t sure what to make of the Buffs’ next steps. Mandel simultaneously warned CU of a regression from their 4-8 season two years ago, but touted winnable games against the Arizona Wildcats and West Virginia Mountaineers up next.
He also gave shoutouts to Utah’s Kyle Whittingham and freshman quarterback Byrd Ficklin for their roles in the blowout.
“Kyle Whittingham’s Utah teams have laid some smackdowns over the years, but the Utes’ 53-7 rout of Colorado was something else. By halftime, Utah already held a 43-0 lead on the Buffs while outgaining them 398 to minus-18. Final total: 587-140. The Utes (6-2, 3-2 Big 12), who started freshman quarterback Byrd Ficklin in place of the injured Devon Dampier, rolled up 422 yards on the ground. It’s been a rough third season for CU’s Deion Sanders, whose team improved from 4-8 to 9-4 last year but sits at 3-5 and appears in danger of slipping right back to 4-8, or worse. But the Buffs have winnable games the next two weeks against Arizona and West Virginia,” Mandel wrote.
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Sanders took responsibility for the loss and claimed the fixes must come at the top, with him and his coaching staff coming together to explain the “why” behind the Buffs’ sad showing. It’s unclear if he is in good enough health to truly turn this program around, though.
Colorado went 9-3 in 2024 off the strength of Deion’s son, Shedeur, manning the quarterback position and Travis Hunter playing Heisman-caliber ball as a receiver and cornerback. While he did plenty of recruiting to get Hunter to join him on the Jackson State Tigers in Mississippi’s depressing capital city before bringing him to Boulder, Shedeur undoubtedly fell in his lap for obvious reasons.
Does Coach Prime have the drive to resurrect the Buffs again? Time will tell. He’ll have to see how big a rebuilding project it’ll be after the next four games.
