Colorado football coach Deion Sanders has always been one to tell it like it is. And unfortunately for No. 16-ranked Buffaloes, Sanders was as blunt as could be after his team’s 37-21 loss to unranked Kansas on Saturday – a game in which the Jayhawks led from their opening six-play, 73-yard touchdown drive and one where Colorado didn’t look anywhere close to being a College Football Playoff team. “We started smelling ourselves a little bit,” Sanders told reporters.
“That’s what I just told our team. We got intoxicated with the success. We got intoxicated with the multitude of articles and the assumption that we’re this and the assumption that we’re that. And we did not play CU football. Therefore, we got our butts kicked.”
While there may be some truth to Sanders’ comments – the Buffaloes were dominated in time of possession by more than 20 minutes and they put up just 308 yards of total offense, far fewer than their average of 399.2 per game entering the week – his assessment may not have been fair for a few players
Receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter had one of his better games of the season – eight catches, 125 yards, two touchdowns, seven tackles, one pass break-up – and quarterback Shedeur Sanders completed nearly 80% of his passes for 266 yards and three touchdowns. In fact, Shedeur seemed to push back a little on his father’s evaluation of how his team performed.
“Personally, I’m just an overconfident person myself,” Shedeur told reporters. “So I can’t spot that on anybody else and say they’re overconfident. I’m not sure. It was really…we all did our job preparing and doing that, so whatever people did in their personal side, like mentally, you won’t be able to know, we won’t be able to know.
I’m focused on plenty of other things than how somebody is thinking at all times.” A second reporter asked Shedeur how the team “sobers up” after Deion’s “intoxicated with success” remarks, to which the 22-year-old QB replied “no comment.”
Despite the loss, there’s still a path for Colorado to the Big 12 championship game. A win over Oklahoma State next week plus a loss by two of Arizona State, BYU or Iowa State gets the job done.
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