What does Kaidon Salter need to do to help the Colorado Buffaloes win close games?

BOULDER, Colo. — Kaidon Salter is 2-2 as the starting quarterback at Colorado. He led the team to victory against Wyoming and was technically the starter for the win against Delaware in which the Buffs had multiple quarterbacks play, but hasn’t gotten the job done in his two starts against Power 4 opponents.

When he was brought here via the transfer portal last offseason, the idea behind the move was that he would bridge the gap between Shedeur Sanders and Julian Lewis and give the Buffs the best chance to win this season. His first four starts have shown that making a bowl game with him as the signal caller might not have been as easy as once thought.

He’s made some great plays with his legs, but when all the chips have been on the table in the fourth quarter, he has failed to produce. In six fourth quarter drives in the two losses, he has led the Buffs to score on just one of those, the first drive in the fourth quarter of the season-opening loss against Georgia Tech. He gave a simple reason for his dip in production on Saturday after the 24-21 loss to No. 25 BYU.

“I did too much today. Just gotta take what the defense gives us,” he said.

Salter finished the contest with just 119 yards passing while completing 11 of his 16 attempts. He had one touchdown and one costly interception that was the nail in the coffin for Colorado with just 50 seconds left. He was also sacked three times for 35 yards, one of which took the Buffs out of field goal range. He made some great plays with his legs on the ground throughout the night, but the miscues in the pass game and with his pocket presence were too much of a negative in the end.

Isaiah Glasker intercepts Kaidon Salter 😬 BYU moves on to 4-0 pic.twitter.com/heEJh0rWst

— NFL Paint (@NFLPaint) September 28, 2025

That’s inexcusable in that scenario. Any quarterback on a championship team would throw that away and live to play another down.

The sacks were an issue for Shedeur Sanders the last two years at Colorado, and Coach Prime was frustrated with the fact that Salter wasn’t taking his medicine and throwing the ball away in key moments.

“Just get rid of the ball…One time, we were in field goal range, and it put us out of field goal range.”

While Sanders had some criticism for Salters performance, he also had some praise, as the veteran made quite a few solid plays both through the air and on the ground.

“He did some wonderful things,” he said.

After the first quarter, in which the Buffs had scored 14 points, Salter had completed all three of his passes for 39 yards and had run for 31. After the opening frame, the Cougars changed the defensive scheme, and started to have a spy follow him around wherever he went on the field. There were times that he could’ve stepped up in the pocket instead of scrambling, and he acknowledged that fact postgame.

“I’ve just got to know that I have more time in the pocket when they’ve got guys spying me, and I can just sit back there and pick and find the right read and get the ball to him,” Salter said.

That’s the answer right there. If the Buffs want to beat ranked opponents and win one-score games, Salter needs to slow his process down. He has looked sped up at times, and has looked to scrambled early at moments instead of waiting the extra tick to let the routes pan out more. He’s had solid protection all year long, as this offensive line has been one of the best pass blocking units in the conference. He’s been reluctant to make the smart, boring play at time, and has looked to bite off more than he can chew, and that hasn’t panned out well for him on multiple occasions.

He has shown flashes that he can lead this team to an eight-win season. He’s made some great throws, he’s made some great plays with his legs, and he’s shown off some swagger at times. When the pressure has built up in his starts and he’s stopped running the opening script, it seems that the moment has gotten too big for him at times.

Is it time to rethink the quarterback room once again? If the Buffs keep losing, why would they keep Julian Lewis waiting? He only got a slim chance against Delaware and hasn’t seen the field since. The upcoming schedule for Colorado is challenging, and the best spots to insert the talented freshman into the lineup would be either during the bye week or when Arizona comes to town at the start of November. There aren’t a plethora of great opportunities to play him if winning is the ultimate goal, so the safer option would be to stick with Salter for the next few games.

That is, of course, if he actually changes the things he talked about in his press conference. The tools are there on paper, but at the end of the day, football is played on the grass.

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