Warren Sapp’s tweets add speculation surrounding Colorado’s player exodus

Jason Jones

•
Warren Sapp’s tweets add speculation surrounding Colorado’s player exodus image

The Colorado Buffaloes are losing the wrong players ahead of the Transfer Portal window. Unlike previous offseason cycles under Deion Sanders, these are not exclusively depth players disappointed with playing time. They are losing key pieces. Pieces that were not expected to enter the portal a month ago.

There have been concerning examples. Dre’lon Miller was unexpected considering how much Prime talks about him and how they want to use him. Tawfiq Byard is alarming, as he was their best and most consistent defender in 2025.

Then there’s Tyler Brown. Brown followed Sanders from Jackson State. Brown saw his coach die and needed a program that would prioritize his mental health concerns. Colorado provided a landing spot that would cater to that need.

Despite submitting his waiver request due to mental illness concerns as his reason for the transfer, the NCAA denied his request for immediate eligibility in 2023 due to his transferring reason. In 2025 Brown saw action as one of Sanders’ multiple two-way players, playing offensive line as well as defensive line. It’s difficult not to see losing Brown as a massive indicator of concern.  

For Warren Sapp, the CU pass rush coordinator, the losses are even more confusing. When the transfer portal window opens on January 2nd Sapp is going to lose Brandon Davis-Swain, Jehiem Oatis, Christian Hudson, Tawfiq Thomas, Gavriel Lightfoot, and Alexander McPherson from the defensive line. Colorado has only two impact defensive lineman from the 2025 season expected to remain on the roster.

McPherson, Davis-Swain, Thomas, Oatis in that order are the 5th through 9th most productive defensive lineman on the team in 2025. Ahead of them was Arden Walker (a 5th year senior), Keaten Wade (senior), London Merritt (freshman, not in the portal), Anquan Barnes (junior-not in the portal), and Amari McNeill (also a 5th year senior).

The program with the largest media machine has gone quiet

The noise around the player exodus at Colorado seems very different heading into the 2026 offseason for two reasons. The first one is the previously mentioned loss of substantial contributors, not disgruntled players buried on the depth chart. The second one is a noticeable absence of online breadcrumbs from the program with the largest social media presence in college football.

To be clear, no one should take issue with college football coaches living their lives outside of the team they coach. Coach Sanders attending Cleveland Browns games is not only perfectly fine, but it should also be expected on some level. Shedeur Sanders’ father is the Buffaloes coach but he’s also still a father.

The issue is not that Sanders and Sapp are living their lives. It’s that they’re living their lives and giving little indication that the business of the Buffaloes is being taken care of. While Sanders posts on his platform(s) almost daily, very little of it is Colorado centric and anything that is, comes off as extremely cryptic. Most of it is his customary motivational tweet of the day.

What Sanders has stated publicly about Colorado interests, seem to be limited to promoting his guys who are starting new careers, thanking players for staying (ie TE Zach Atkins and P Damon Greaves), as well as those cryptic messages that only he and a few other people are likely to understand.

If the cryptic tweets are his way of hinting at expected signings in ten days, then most of this could be much ado about nothing. However, if Sanders is not aggressively signing players out of the portal, then there will be more questions than answers. Even tweets like the following are nice, but rather vague and can't be assumed they are recruiting related. 

In his last address to local media, Sanders was very clear that he understands the 2025 season is not close to good enough. He also promised big changes. Some of those have already been announced in the form of new coordinator and position group coaching hires. 

"This is what I've been called to do and to take a L, take a L, take a L, you have no idea how that is to a winner," Sanders said. "You can be a loser or a guy who lost games. I'd rather be a guy who lost games, because I'm not a loser." He would go onto add, "I can't wait til this portal opens. We just didn't get it right last year." In addition to those comments, he also spoke about the two defensive ends he said would be pros. As well as expecting a lot from Brandon-Swain. As of today, both Swain and McPherson are currently in the portal. 

This all comes down to reality vs optics. Coach Sanders and Coach Sapp as well as many other interested entities working towards the recruiting effort, might be executing a plan. While simply choosing not to be very public about it. Which would be fine. However, coming from the program with the largest social media presence and a history of leaving those social media breadcrumbs, it's odd when they don’t.

Warren Sapp's recent twitter posts only add to the speculation

Like Sanders, Sapp’s social media is not dormant. On December 19th, Sapp was trending for the wrong reasons. In that tweet Sapp goes into much more detail about the Ms. Cosmo Pageant than he has anything related to the operation of Buffs football. At just about the same time his defensive line room was losing players.

On December 22nd, Sapp posted on twitter to complain about the seating accommodations the Miami Hurricanes can provide for him for the upcoming Ohio State vs Miami quarterfinal playoff game. It's not uncommon for former players to get ticket accommodations for games. 

If the Colorado coaching staff has an excellent plan that includes another massive roster flip, that could be fine. However, these coaches have an important job ahead of them. One the head man claims he fully understands and plans to dramatically change. If there is no great plan and college football coaches are treating the offseason like an offseason, the noise around the program is only going to get louder.

There are NCAA rules and regulations around how much coaches can say about prospective recruits or transfer portal targets. No one’s asking the Buffs coaching staff to outline in detail what their plan is. It can be cryptic, but silence or a complete about face from your typical process is going to raise eyebrows.

More college football news: 

Staff Writer