Deion Sanders vows CU Buffs will be better coming off bye week
Oct 24, 2023, 11:58 AM
The Colorado Buffaloes are coming off one of their most painful losses in program history, as the team blew a 29-point lead to a struggling Stanford Cardinal program.
And then Deion Sanders’ Buffs just had to sit on it. Now finally off the bye, CU is back in Boulder and readying for the No. 23 UCLA Bruins on the road. Despite a 4-3 record, and already a massive jump from a season ago, Coach Prime is not happy with where Colorado is coming off the bye.
“My expectations are lofty, so you know darn well how the season is going with my expectations,” Sanders said on Tuesday. “You can’t mix your expectations with mine because they don’t coincide. I know where I feel where we should be record-wise and what we can accomplish I just want to put it all together in one game.”
The Buffaloes made waves, starting the season 3-0, with wins over TCU, Nebraska and Colorado State. Since the team has struggled, losing against Pac-12 powers in Oregon and USC, beating a bad Arizona State team, and then falling apart at home against Stanford. The latest loss could cost the Buffs their second bowl eligibility in a full season since 2007, as had the prior two worst-blown leads in CU history—each taking place in that period. Sanders wasn’t too pleased about the bye coming up after such a tough loss, sending a pretty harsh message to his players and following that up by stewing.
“I don’t think we needed to get away or get rest, we need to maintain and keep on going,” he said. “Just like when you break up in a relationship, do you want a bye or to keep going? I want to keep going. I want to keep on moving, progressing, going forward. That’s how I’m built—that’s how man and woman are built—to go forward. We’re thankful we didn’t have many injuries, but overall we’ve been pretty good injury-wise.”
After the Bruins, the Buffs host a possible top 10 Oregon State Beavers in Boulder, then a feisty Arizona Wildcats team. CU finishes possibly with two ranked teams on the road in Washington State and Utah. The Stanford loss could haunt, that is unless Sanders can recapture some of the magic from earlier this season. One of the areas Sanders blames the recent struggles is Colorado’s ballooning penalty issues. The Buffaloes followed the pillar of his program in being disciplined with only six penalties against TCU, since it’s not been good—and Colorado’s 9.9 penalties a game on the season is the worst in all of college football.
“We have addressed all of that and we have addressed the individuals that have consistently been penalized,” Coach Prime said. “You should see a tremendous improvement come Saturday.
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