This Buffs team was supposed to be Deion Sanders’ proof of concept. Only the proof caved in. The concept is 3-6.
CU needs dudes. Elite dudes. Scary dudes. Dudes gifted enough and clever enough to plaster over the cracks left by Sanders’ coaching staff.
The 2024 Buffs had the greatest two-way athlete in modern football history; an All-American quarterback; four future NFL wide receivers; a future NFL pass-rusher; and a future NFL safety.
The 2025 Buffs have flesh wounds. CU football has gone from stars to scars.
“There’s still something to the fact that the guys that (CU) lost last year were special,” Mike Golic Jr., the Warner Bros. Discovery/TNT Sports analyst who’ll call the Buffs-West Virginia game Saturday in Morgantown, told me this week. “Those were major losses, two of the most important (talents) in college football (in 2024). It was never going to be 1-for-1 (replacement).”
Coach Prime said upon his December 2022 arrival that he was bringing “Louis Vuitton” luggage to CU — talent that would render the incumbents irrelevant.
Sanders still has some guys. They’re just young. Sophomore Jordan Seaton is Penei Sewell in the making, a quick-twitch blocker who can fire or fall back, with the feet and leverage to pull and plow guys in space.
But a left tackle can only do so much. No one on the CU roster filled Travis Hunter’s four shoes. Or Shedeur Sanders’ big two.
A year ago, the Buffs boasted the No. 1 passing offense in the Big 12. It’s 14th in 2025. CU ranked second only to BYU in takeaways last fall. Nine games into 2025, the Buffs are tied for 15th.
Which goes back to the concept, doesn’t it? Or rather, the softer parts of its underbelly. One, Coach Prime’s teams fly only as high as their quarterbacks can soar. Two, elite offensive lines can’t be patchwork jobs, can’t be microwaved and can’t have 80-90% turnover every year. Three, when you lean on free agents, you’re spinning the roulette wheel on chemistry and cohesion. Why am I listening to some guy who just got here?
Rosters with a spine of locker room leaders don’t let teams hang half a hundred on them. Squads with a backbone of player-to-player accountability sure as heck don’t let it happen in back-to-back games.
“When you have teams that are going through a little bit of a slide, and you’ve lost four of your last five, you’re looking for answers and searching for answers,” Golic said. “Right now, we’ve seen the shuffling at quarterback. If there really was a change at play-caller as well, it really shows that this team is searching for an identity this late in the season. Which is really difficult when the calendar turns to November.”
No pressure, Julian Lewis, but you’ll point the way. The floor is yours.
So is the ceiling.
Lewis, the four-star true freshman quarterback out of Georgia, is slated to make his first collegiate start at Milan Puskar Stadium, the land where couches go to die. Can he keep the chains moving? Can he spot danger and escape from it? Can he consistently hit the deep ball? Can he rally a wounded roster on the road?
More to the point, can he put enough juice on national TV to make some wideout or lineman, somewhere else, perk up and say, “I want to play with that guy.”
Coach Prime is the greatest salesman in the sport right now. But you know who Sanders’ not-so-secret weapons were when it came to building last fall’s 9-4 roster? His sons.
Guys wanted to catch balls from Shedeur, the best pure passer CU has ever produced. They wanted to see if they could run with Hunter. Nobody pitches your program, especially to their peers, the way your players do.
Deion has switched play-callers at least three times in 34 games at the helm. He’s changed blockers the way Avs coach Jared Bednar changes lines. The Buffs under Sanders put up a 12-10 record in Hunter’s 22 collegiate starts.
They’re 4-8 without Travis.
Sean Lewis? Pat Shurmur? Bret Bartolone? CU’s offense goes as its Jimmies and its Joes.
The Buffs earlier this week landed a commitment for 2027 from Alex Ward, a 4-star burner out of IMG Academy in Florida. Ju Ju could use four more of him.
“There’s no substitute for having the perspective of knowing you’re going to be the guy and all the reps that come with that,” Golic said of Lewis. “To have the opportunity to be the guy, even for just a couple of games, will pay dividends later on.”
If you can’t save the present, salvage the future. The Buffs need more Louis to get where Deion expects them to go. And a lot less baggage.
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