This season marks a new chapter for the Colorado Buffaloes. For the first time in three years, Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders are no longer on the team. Their leadership presence is missing both on the field and within the locker room. Still, head coach Deion Sanders believes this year’s squad is the best he’s assembled during his tenure.
“I think this is the best team we've ever assembled thus far," Sanders said. "We had some tremendous athletes, but we have some tremendous athletes now. Overall, this is the best team, as well as the best staff."
The summer wasn’t without challenges. Sanders dealt with health issues that kept him away from the team for a significant stretch. Despite that, he remained active in recruiting.
“I got on the phone with him when I went over there for my (visit),” said Rodney Colton Jr. “I was on the phone with him (July 12) too. He was just like, `We don’t recruit guys who don’t want to get in here and play.’”
Sanders didn’t return to Boulder until the start of fall camp, meaning he had to quickly re-adjust to the day-to-day demands of coaching. On Friday, he suffered his first opening-game loss as Colorado’s head coach. A major point of criticism was his clock mismanagement late in the game, which drew immediate scrutiny.
“Really poor clock management. There's really no other way to look at it. Maybe even after the first play, you call a timeout. Definitely after the second play. You gotta call a timeout. Every second is so precious in that scenario, and you got two timeouts in your back pocket," said ESPN’s Dusty Dvoracek. “The last thing you ever want to do in a situation like this is it comes down to the end and you're fighting with the clock, is to end the game with multiple timeouts in your pocket. That's something that Coach Sanders, Coach Shurmur has got to learn from and get better from moving forward. And same goes for the quarterback Kaidon Salter."
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This late-game blunder may be a side effect of Sanders adjusting to life without the quarterback he’s coached throughout his college head coaching career. With Shedeur Sanders at QB, Deion had a trusted leader who instinctively understood the situation. In game one of this new season, Sanders may have placed a bit too much trust in his new senior leader.
The good news for Colorado is that it’s only Week 1. It’s a valuable learning opportunity for both coach and quarterback moving forward.