‘I really hope you don’t count me out’: Deion Sanders stays defiant as Colorado’s skid hits four

Deion Sanders has heard hate since the day he was born he says, and he's hearing it again as boss of the Colorado Buffaloes — but he warns to not count him out

BY JAKE SHAPIRO

Oct 20, 2026, 6:57 PM

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Watch: Did Coach Prime and the Colorado Buffaloes prove something against Utah? | Shapiro and Piro | 21 mins

Deion Sanders has heard hate since the day he was born he says, and he’s hearing it again as boss of the Colorado Buffaloes.

“I’ve been hated on since I came out the womb,” Sanders said Tuesday. “I think the doctor said something wrong about me.”

A four-game losing streak and Boulder has made the noise loud for Coach Prime and perhaps has even started to heat his seat in his fourth year coaching Colorado. They’ve dropped to 2-4, 0-3 Big 12, and are 5-13 since Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter left for the NFL. The Buffaloes play at Oklahoma State on Saturday where they’re nearly two touchdown underdogs.

Sanders is trucking on, three days after a 27-24 loss to now-No. 10 Utah — that felt like a moral victory to everyone — coach included.

“These young men are not to be counted out, the staff is not to be counted out, and I really hope you don’t count me out because I’m gonna fight, regardless of what’s in front of me,” Sanders said. “That’s just who we are and how we’re built.”

CU trailed 13-0 at halftime Saturday. Then the Buffs scored 17 straight points to lead in the third quarter and lost to an unbeaten top-15 team by a field goal. If they had completed the comeback, it would’ve been the Buffs best win in terms of a highest-ranked opponent beaten since 2007. Sanders called that “a tremendous advancement” for his offense, defense, special teams and coaching staff.

“You hate to say, OK, we got our butts kicked, but we got better,” Sanders said. “But we did.”

It’s hard to dispute that. In the second half, the Buffaloes looked like the team they were advertised to be and the one Sanders is paid to be coaching.

“I don’t know if we’ve played a really good quarter,” he said. “A decent quarter, decent half, because you gotta score in every quarter for it to really be a good quarter.”

Offense has been a problem the entire time Sanders has been here. They’ve been unorganized, lacked in a run game and were only saved by Sanders and Hunter’s remarkable play. It’s why the team has cycled through so many offensive coordinators and have landed on the splashy Brennan Marion. But he hasn’t really fixed the issue, which Prime would had been blaming on poor quarterback play. Still, and even with that third quarter, Colorado ranks last in the Big 12 at 19.5 points per game.

“That’s not a recipe to win,” Sanders said. “When we can score, we could beat anybody in the country. We just got to score the football.”

He’s right, as the defense has kept the Buffs in it the last two games — each against two of the better teams in the country in the Red Raiders and Utes. But he did point the finger at one area to get better on that side of the ball — discipline. That’s a word everywhere around the program in Boulder, but the area it could show up in displays the opposite of this team.

“We can’t overcome that,” Sanders said of penalties. “We’re not good enough to overcome those adversities.”

Isaac Wilson, the Utah transfer, is at the center of all of it. He has thrown for 546 yards, three touchdowns and five interceptions in two starts against ranked teams. Sanders split the blame on Wilson’s two picks against Utah. He said one was “a heck of a ball” that got taken away from the receiver. The other: “He knows better than to throw a ball like that in that situation.”

“But he played good enough for us to win,” Sanders said. “And he didn’t get down on himself. He didn’t cry, bicker, murmur on the sideline. He just fought back and tried to get it done, and that’s why we got confidence in Isaac.”

So Colorado does have their quarterback for now and those questions have quieted but Sanders is now turning his eye elsewhere.

“I don’t think you see quit in 99% of the team,” he said.

He didn’t say who makes up the other 1%.

Mostly, Sanders wants his players to tune out the noise he says he’s ignored since birth. He said the team watched a Ray Lewis video Tuesday morning, and he warned that college players are “very moved” by what’s said about them online.

“Quit trying to find something wrong and just try to find some right,” Sanders said. “We’re attracted to that on social, right? You harbor on that one bad tweet or whatever they call it, but you don’t focus on all the good ones. It’s much more good ones than bad ones.”

Next up is an Oklahoma State quarterback Sanders says “can flat out spin it,” on the road, with the season slipping away.

Sanders says his team isn’t panicking, and neither is he.

“We’re good,” he said.

Whether the fanbase and athletic department are panicking or not is another question