Pushing back on Deion Sanders Jr.’s criticism of Colorado’s overtime win

Colorado's first win in a month and a half wasn't pretty, but the hosts say nobody holding a camera should tell the players or the students how to feel about it.

BY DENVER SPORTS

Nov 3, 2026, 9:49 AM

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Watch: How close is Deion Sanders to turning the Buffs’ season around after beating Kansas State? | 8 mins

Five straight losses change what a good win looks like. By the end of that stretch, nobody at Colorado is grading on style.

That was the case the hosts of “The Drive” made after the Buffaloes beat Kansas State in overtime for their first victory in a month and a half. On a recent episode, they argued that the result mattered more than the way it arrived, and that the loudest critic of the celebration was the one with the least claim to a say in it.

The win doesn’t have to be pretty

The ugliness is not in dispute. Colorado was favored. They needed overtime. Kansas State was down to its fourth-string quarterback, and the Wildcats missed both of their regulation field goal attempts. Given all of those factors, Bye conceded that style points and an easier win were fair things to want.

But the win snapped a five-game skid and was the Buffs’ first Big 12 victory of the year. Colorado also ran for 222 yards, which Bye called unlike anything the team had done under Deion Sanders.

Phillip Lindsay put the philosophy plainly.

“You don’t apologize for winning,” he said. “You just find a way to win, you move on and now you have another chance ahead of you to win again.”

The player and the camera

The target of this criticism was Deion Sanders Jr., who went live on social media after the game. Bye said the players could be heard celebrating behind him while he said he didn’t want to be a party pooper and then called the win “trash.”

Lindsay’s objection was about who was talking.

“You’re not the one that has to go out there and actually wear these wins and losses,” he said.

Bye landed on the same point with a sharper line.

“You’re not wearing a jersey,” he said. “You’re wearing a camera, right?”

He called the livestream untasteful and added it to a list of things that have turned him off about the Sanders family.

Let the students storm

The same logic covered the students who rushed the field on Halloween night. Lindays said he couldn’t control what they did and that it hurt nobody. If you don’t like it, he said, change the channel.

Bye’s reasoning was longer-term. Students stick around Boulder for a few years at most, and they have watched the program get hammered. He said he has been among those delivering that criticism, rightfully in his view. Still, fans are entitled to their own reaction.

“I don’t tell a fan how to fan,” he said.

He compared it to the field-storming after Colorado’s lone win in a past season and said the students know where the program stands. Their celebration is part knowing exaggeration.

What the win doesn’t change

Neither host is mistaking a Kansas State win for a turnaround. Bye was blunt that the bowl door is shut, whatever his co-host’s optimism about stacking wins against Arizona State and others.

“The Buffs are not going to a bowl game,” ZB said.

Lindsay framed it as a performance-based business: Sanders is paid to win, and winning is the only thing that changes the conversation. The question for the Buffs is whether this was a one-night release or the start of a pattern. The hosts will get their first read on the road in Arizona.

Disclosure: This article was transcribed from our original audio content and edited for readability with the assistance of generative AI. The article has been reviewed by our editorial team prior to publication. Please watch or listen to the clip above for the full segment.