Has the hype surrounding the Colorado Buffaloes gone too far?
Former Colorado LB Chad Brown talks about the Buffaloes’ popularity this season with the addition of coach Deion Sanders.
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BOULDER, Colo. – Colorado head coach Deion Sanders did what he thought he needed to do this week, even if it seemed a little desperate. After losing four of his last five games, he reorganized his coaching staff and promoted a former NFL head coach to game manager to get the best out of his star quarterback son.
But it did not work. In fact, the Buffaloes fared even worse against No. 19 Oregon State on Saturday, scoring their only two touchdowns of the game all the way down before falling short, 26-19.
Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders even needed another shot of painkillers to finish the game as the Buffs fell to 4-5 on the season after capturing the nation’s attention with a 3-0 start.
“It’s hard,” Deion Sanders said afterwards. “The reason it’s so hard is because you know you’re capable of doing better – playing better, performing better, deciding better games, coaching better for myself. “ And you come up short when you have enough to get the job done. And it’s painful. It hurts myself, the team and all the coaches and fans.”
As it turned out, it was a coaching error just before halftime that tipped the balance in the game. Deion Sanders blamed himself. But the Buffs still struggled to protect their quarterback through the first three quarters before he went to the locker room to get his painkiller shot. Afterward, he said he “got angry” and nearly helped his team rally from a 23-5 fourth-quarter deficit (52,725) in front of a sellout home crowd at Folsom Field.
What else did Deion Sanders say?
He explained why he named former New York Giants and Cleveland Browns head coach Pat Shurmur as offensive coordinator Sean Lewis.
According to a copy of his appointment letter obtained by USA TODAY Sports, Shurmur had been earning an annual salary of $50,000 as a behind-the-scenes analyst at Colorado. But after that big change, he is now one of the team’s 10 full-time assistant coaches and holds the title of co-offensive coordinator along with Lewis, who left his head coaching job at Kent State last year to run the offense at Colorado US dollars this year.
“We’re not going to demean Sean Lewis,” Deion Sanders said when asked about making Shurmur the play-caller instead of Lewis. “We won’t do that. We will not adopt this tone. Sean is a good man. I think he’s a good play-caller. We just needed a change back then. We just had to try something different back then, and that’s what we did. I’m not looking back. I don’t doubt myself at all because there’s more to it than you might know.”
Deion Sanders said the play-calling system is “still a group effort” and that both Lewis and Shurmur are “really talented.”
“It’s not about one being good or one being bad,” he said.
Before Saturday, the Buffs ranked second in the nation in most sacks allowed with 42, a year after they had just 23 in a season in which they finished 1-11. They also had the third-worst rushing offense in the country, allowing just 78.6 yards per game.
On Saturday, Shedeur Sanders was sacked four more times and his team gained minus-7 rushing yards on 19 carries.
What happened in the game?
Despite the shakeup on the coaching staff, the offensive linemen on the field were still the same and behaved the same, with more permeable protection for Shedeur Sanders.
The Buffs gained just 52 yards of total offense on 30 plays before halftime as they trailed 14-3. They also punted five times on their first seven possessions, fumbled the ball on another and made a 32-yard field goal for their only score. The latter only occurred after Colorado safety Shilo Sanders forced a fumble to give the Buffs offensive possession at Oregon State’s 19-yard line.
As the team headed to the locker room at halftime, Shedeur Sanders appeared to be limping and Deion Sanders blamed himself for a strategic gaffe that led to an Oregon State touchdown with 16 seconds left in the second quarter.
“It’s on me,” Deion Sanders told ESPN at halftime.
What was the mistake?
Colorado got the ball at its own 4-yard line with 49 seconds left before halftime and was only down 7-3. If the Buffs had let the ball run and time expired, that would have been the score at halftime.
Instead, Shedeur Sanders acted like he was trying to run the length of the field to score. He attempted two passes that were incomplete on first and second downs before passing the ball for no gain on third down — ultimately forcing the Beavers to burn one of their two remaining timeouts with 36 seconds left.
Colorado then hit fourth down, setting up a quick score for the Beavers just before halftime.
Why didn’t the Buffs just run out the clock and avoid giving the Beavers the ball to score?
“We wanted to go out there because we knew we were going to get the ball in the second half,” Deion Sanders said. “So the plan was to either get a first down and try to advance, or if we don’t succeed, if we don’t succeed on the first down, OK, let’s go for the clock.”
It didn’t work out that way. Oregon State got the ball with 21 seconds left on a 28-yard punt return at the Colorado 20-yard line.
One play later, Oregon State quarterback DJ Uiagalelei threw the ball down the right sideline to running back Deshaun Fenwick for a 20-yard touchdown with 16 seconds left in the half.
The touchdown ultimately made the difference in the game. Instead of trailing just 7-3 at halftime, the Buffs trailed 14-3.
“You know, that was huge in a lot of ways,” Oregon State head coach Jonathan Smith said.
Deion Sanders knew it too.
“They were able to do it, which is crazy,” he said. “That hurt terribly.”
Oregon State’s momentum then continued in the second half as the Beavers gained 85 yards in 12 plays on their first drive and took a 20-3 lead after a 1-yard rush by Uiagalelei.
What happened at the end of the game?
About three minutes before the end of the third quarter, Shedeur Sanders went to the locker room to get his painkiller shot. He didn’t miss any action on the field and returned to lead his team in touchdown drives on the Buffs’ very last two possessions of the game. Their first touchdown was a 15-yard pass from Shedeur Sanders to two-way star Travis Hunter, which helped cut Oregon State’s lead to 23-12 with 10:41 remaining.
It came on just Colorado’s 11th possession of the game, after seven punts and a lost fumble before that.
“I just got angry,” Shedeur Sanders said. “That’s it.”
He said he never considered leaving the game because “the pain of not being there for her outweighs the pain” he felt in his body. On his next possession, he led the Buffs down the field again for a nine-play score, capped by a 12-yard touchdown pass to running back Anthony Hankerson with 1:42 remaining. But it was too little, too late.
Afterward, he downplayed the change in play-callers, but said, “Overall, I liked it.”
The Beavers (7-2) outscored the Buffs by a margin of 418-238. Of those 238 total yards, 160 for Colorado came in the fourth quarter. Shedeur Sanders finished the game completing 24 of 39 passes for 245 yards and two touchdowns.
Uiagalelei was 12 of 24 for 223 yards and a touchdown.
What’s next for Deion Sanders and Colorado?
Deion Sanders said his team lacked the “passion” it had at the start of the season. But he found a silver lining as his team heads into the final three games of the regular season, starting next week with the home finale against Arizona. They must win two to qualify for a postseason bowl game.
“Our kids fought hard,” he said. “They really did. And I love the fact that they didn’t have any determination in them, that they came together in the end and put in a lot of effort. We just hope we can do that in the middle of the game.”
Regardless of who is calling the plays, he still has the same offensive line. On the other hand, he still has Shedeur at quarterback. On Saturday he showed again that he can carry the team on his back, at least as long as he can hold on.
“The boy is tough,” his father said. “He Is hard. He fights through it and makes no excuses. He wasn’t raised that way. We don’t make excuses. We do not do that.”
What else did Deion Sanders do with his employees?
To make room for Shurmur on a coaching staff limited to 10 by NCAA rules, Sanders had to remove a current assistant coach and demote him to analyst. Colorado tight ends coach Tim Brewster is making this downward move, although Sanders said he doesn’t consider it a demotion “because everyone makes the same amount of money.” Brewster, a former Minnesota head coach, is making $400,000 in Colorado this year.
Colorado only used one tight end, making Brewster a logical candidate to move to analyst.
“It’s a move we had to make,” Deion Sanders said.
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: [email protected]