Deion Sanders defends Pat Shurmur after Week 1 loss

The Colorado Buffaloes weren’t firing on all cylinders in their Week 1 loss to Georgia Tech. No one fires on all cylinders to open the season, and the performances by some of the country’s top teams proves that.

While the Buffs didn’t have it all going offensively, it was the way that the offense operated that caused some lackadaisical stretches. They got away from running the ball at times, failed to put the ball in the hands of their top receivers and didn’t utilize Kaidon Salter’s running ability to its full potential.

Not to mention the swing screen to open the final drive that lost four yards and plenty of precious time, one of the most puzzling decisions of the evening.

Sanders defended his offensive coordinator at his weekly press conference on Tuesday, and tried to put all the blame for Friday’s loss on his own shoulders.

“It seems like you guys just pick and choose who you want to target. That’s cool. We didn’t lose the game because of coach Shurmur, coach Livingston, or one specific thing. I got to do a better job. I’m preparing my team, challenging my coaches to go to the next level. That’s on me,” Sanders said.

While he was doing the right thing and being a good leader by saying this, it doesn’t mask the fact that Shurmur’s decisions were part of the reason why Colorado walked out of Friday’s game with a tick in the loss column.

As a reminder, the Buffs offense wavered at times last season, even with Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter leading the way. They failed to run the ball all year long, and there were multiple games in which Shurmur didn’t even try to attack on the ground. When he was calling plays in the NFL, Shurmur’s offenses never finished inside of the top 10 of total offense when he was the one calling the plays, and only had one season inside the top half of the league.

Shurmur’s total offense ranks as a play-calling OC or HC in the NFL (not counting his years as the offensive coordinator with Chip Kelly in Philadelphia) are as follows: 29, 26, 29, 25, 28, 11, 17, 23, 23, 19. That’s not good. Friday’s contest showed that he still doesn’t know who his best players are or how to draw up an effective scheme for the modern game of football. In 2024, his Colorado offense ranked 69th out of 133 teams.

Sanders emphasized that he believes no one would be questioning his play caller if the Buffs just executed the plays that were called.

“If we hit the darn plays we hit, we wouldn’t be asking these questions. We had the plays, we just didn’t make it happen. We had the plays there. We just didn’t make it happen. You watched the same game I watched, right? We had several plays that we should have made happen, happen. We didn’t. They did,” Sanders said.

While Salter did miss some throws, only so many screens can be effective in a single game. They executed those screens that Shurmur called, but the problem is that the Georgia Tech defense was ready for it. The big thing here is that Shurmur lacked creativity in the plays he called and failed to trust his quarterback to push the ball down field to his talented receivers.

The inaugural season of the Coach Prime era showed that Sanders isn’t hesitant to make changes to his staff if needed when he gave Sean Lewis the boot from the headset after Week 8. Will he have to do the same thing this season? The Buffs have a few games to get their heads on straight, but if there’s more questionable play calling in the BYU game in Week 5, it will be time to have some uncomfortable conversations.

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