Things are about to get tougher for the Colorado Buffaloes before they get easier. Deion Sanders’ football team takes on the TCU Horned Frogs on Saturday night, the No. 14 Iowa State Cyclones a week later, and finally the Utah Utes, the latter following the bye week, in a pivotal October stretch. CU started 2-3, with wins against Group of 5 opponents, and is in danger of being bowl-ineligible for the second time in three years since “Prime Time” arrived in Boulder.
As USA Today’s Brent Schrotenboer notes, the aforementioned “gauntlet” follows a stretch of facing the highest winning percentage in the country for a team’s first five opponents, excluding games against Colorado. The Buffaloes defeated the Wyoming Cowboys and Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens convincingly, but took close home losses to the BYU Cougars and Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, and a 36-20 blowout loss at the hands of the Houston Cougars at TDECU Stadium.
“NCAA statistics rank the nation’s toughest schedules by the combined win-loss totals of past opponents, regardless of the quality of their wins. Colorado’s five opponents so far have a combined record of 15-1, not including wins and losses against Colorado. That opponents’ winning percentage (93.8%) ranks first nationally after five weeks,” Schrotenboer wrote.
“And now comes a return to TCU, where Sanders started his tenure at Colorado in 2023 with an astonishing 45-42 win in the season opener. The Horned Frogs are 3-1 this season.
“Colorado’s gauntlet continues next week at home against No. 12 Iowa State, followed by an off weekend Oct. 18 and then a game at No. 25 Utah on Oct. 25.”
Looking at the remainder of the schedule after the “gauntlet,” there is one winnable game against the struggling West Virginia Mountaineers and 50/50 matchups with the Arizona Wildcats and Kansas State Wildcats. The No. 25 Arizona State Sun Devils look like a tough out with how things currently stand.
4-8 may be the team’s best-case scenario, just two years after that record had many predicting a one-way ticket out of Colorado for Coach Prime.
Expect another offseason of retirement rumors after another unsuccessful campaign, sprinkled in with more bogus NFL rumors not unlike Sanders’ Jerry Jones-Dallas Cowboys flirtation about the franchise’s then-open head coaching role this past offseason.
Given the state of Sanders’ health, the retirement rumors won’t be unfounded.