Deion Sanders says he’s ‘not happy’ with Colorado’s 3-4 start

Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders expressed his frustrations on Tuesday regarding the team's 3-4 start to the season

BY TRENT FINNEGAN

Oct 21, 2025, 12:27 PM Updated: 12:34 pm

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Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes had big goals for this season. Coming off the second year of the Prime era in which they finished 9-4 with a trip to the Alamo Bowl, the Buffs were looking to make it to a conference championship game for the first time since 2016 and possibly further. Through seven games, those dreams have been practically shot down as they have a tough road ahead just to make a bowl game.

Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter are no longer on the field, a big factor as to why the winning hasn’t been the same this season, but there is still plenty of talent on the roster. The offensive line has been one of the best units in the country from a pass blocking perspective, and the run game has picked up tremendously from where it was the last two seasons.

SOME POSITIONS HAVE IMPROVED, WHILE SOME HAVE FALLEN THROUGH THE CRACKS

On the flip side, the secondary doesn’t have as much talent, the defensive line isn’t getting home on pass rush snaps, the linebackers are missing tackles, and the quarterback is playing inconsistently. Those aspects don’t add up to winning football, and are major reasons to thank as to why Colorado is sitting with a 3-4 record over halfway through the season.

At his weekly media availability on Tuesday, Sanders talked about the state of his team this year and his program as a whole, and kept things honest.

“I know where we want to be, I know what we should be… Am I ecstatic right now with where we are? No, but, but I’m not upset either, because I know what we have in that lock, Roman on this coaching staff. Could we be better so much? Should we have won several of the games that we lost? Yes, I can’t identify one game that that team was better than us, and they kicked our butts. I can’t identify that, so I’m not happy with what we are, but I’m happy with where we’re going, because you got to think about the improvement,” Sanders said.

It’s a double-edged sword for the Buffs. They improved upon areas of weakness from a season ago, but lost talent from areas of strength and didn’t replenish them. However, they’ve been competitive in six of the seven games they’ve played so far, with the Week 3 loss to Houston being the only game that they lost wire-to-wire. At times in the other games, they looked better and more composed than the opponents on the other side of the ball, but the lack of consistency and leadership caused the cracks to show and opened the doors for those teams to steal victory from Buffs.

DEION SANDERS SAYS HE NEEDS TO GO OUT AND GET CONSISTENCY

Sanders went through the entire Buffs roster, and while he had praise for some position groups, like his running backs and his tight ends, he acknowledged that he needed more from the quarterback, the linebackers and the secondary. He also took accountability for the lack of production at some positions, and sent a short, but confident message to the Buffs fanbase.

“At certain positions, we just need consistency, and I’m gonna go out and get that. That’s on me.”

He’s likely talking about the transfer portal, an aspect of college football that he’s used to transform this Colorado program and revive it from being the laughingstock of the country.

Sanders’ Buffs need to win three more games to become bowl eligible. Their last victory, a 24-17 upset over Iowa State, practically saved their bowl game hopes and gave them some much-needed momentum heading into the bye. The black and gold have three winnable games on the schedule — home against Arizona, at West Virginia and at Kansas State — but again, those games will be played on the grass, not on paper and certainly not in Hollywood. The other two games at Utah and against Arizona State will be much tougher, but they’ve shown that they can compete with anyone on any given day.

The Buffs are back in action on Saturday night when they take on Utah on the road. That game kicks from Salt Lake City at 8:15 p.m. MDT and will be televised on ESPN.