Colorado Buffaloes football coach Deion Sanders was slightly off on his recollection, but Coach Prime shouted out the 2014 Clemson Tigers for being an example his own locker room must follow to get out of their current 1-2 rut.
That Clemson team started 1-2 but finished 9-3 in the regular season and 10-3 overall after dispatching the Oklahoma Sooners in that year’s Russell Athletic Bowl, 40-6. Coach Prime shouted them out for going 10-2, but was off by a game.
The sentiment remains.
“Dabo Swinney is one of my favorites. I love him to life. I love the man he is, the coach he is — just a great guy. Just a guy that I could look up to in this coaching realm. Just looking back on some of the things that they’ve accomplished, and they’ve been sitting here before, 1-2 and they turned it all around. I think they ended up 10-2 that season,” Sanders said at a presser this week.
“And, why not us? Why can’t we turn it around? Why can’t we correct the wrongs with the rights and display consistency and do those things? Because we have the talent in-house. We just got to put it to usage and do what we are capable of doing.”
Dabo Swinney switched back and forth between Cole Stoudt and Deshaun Watson under center that year.
Any similar finish only happens if the signal-caller position is settled in Boulder, too.
Colorado faces the Wyoming Cowboys at Folsom Field on Saturday in their final non-conference game of the season. During a 31-7 win over the Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens in Week 2, Sanders gave his three quarterbacks a chance to earn the starting job. Against another Group of Five team, Wyoming, Coach Prime is giving Kaidon Salter the chance to earn the job back and likely giving Staub a chance to keep it.
We’ll see if a second straight nine-win regular season is coming for a Buffs team that looks far from that caliber right now.