Dakich: College Football Will Be Worse Without Sanders, Hunter | Don’t @ Me w/ Dan Dakich
“I’m sad about this because I think college football was more interesting when Colorado had Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter and Deion was fresh, but they crashed last year. Three and nine, five game losing streak they’re currently on. Seems like there’s a lot of things. Dion’s health, that kind of thing. I don’t know, man. This seems to be headed in a bad direction. And as importantly, I guess it’s not interesting anymore.”
Deion Sanders said on Saturday night following the loss to Texas Tech that he would have more respect for the people covering his team if they would just tell the truth about what is taking place in Colorado.
“You know what it is. If I say it, you’re gonna run with it, you know darn well what it is,” Sanders exclaimed. “Write it yourselves… It’s blatant… I’d respect ya’ll a lot more if you said it yourself”
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Ok, i’ll say it: the spotlight on the Colorado program has been turned off, and there is nobody else to blame besides Deion Sanders and the athletic department.
The 2023 season went about as you’d expect, with a 4-8 record while trying to overhaul the roster with transfer portal players.
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It was the 2024 season that gave Colorado fans something to savor, thanks in large part to Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders, along with a group of teammates who were bought into what Coach Prime was instilling within Boulder.
Then came a 3-9 season in 2025, followed by a squad that is currently 2-3 after the collapse against Texas Tech.
You can’t sugarcoat this any longer, the shine has worn off, and the spotlight is now glaring down on the problems most of us knew were going to hamper Colorado over the long-haul. Trying to install your own grit mentality with a roster full of transfers, which is common now in college football, has not produced results in Boulder.
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Deion wanted the media to write the ‘truth’ for those outside the building
Last week, Deion made the decision to dismiss three players from the program after a number of incidents, which included those same athletes laughing in the Northwestern locker room after being dragged all over the field by the Wildcats.
This week, he’s essentially asking the media to throw his quarterbacks underneath the bus just so he doesn’t have to do it at the podium.
Sure, the future is looking bright in Boulder.
“Let’s stop the shenanigans, man,” Deion Sanders told reporters following the loss to Texas Tech. “We’ve got one glaring problem. You guys know darn well what that is. Let’s stop the foolishness. We’ve got to play better at one specific position. That’s it.”
Julian Lewis of Colorado drops back to pass during the college football game between the Colorado Buffaloes and Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Sept. 3, 2026, at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta, Ga. (Icon Sportswire)
Well, that sounds like a ‘you’ problem, given the circumstances around an offensive line that cannot protect the quarterback and a group of athletes that found themselves lost in the spotlight that used to come with playing for Sanders.
As for 5-star quarterback Julian Lewis, who was demoted last week, there seems to be more to the situation than Deion is intentionally letting on. But don’t worry, the Colorado coach is not going to specifically call out the redshirt freshman, he’s just going to act as if it’s the quarterback’s job to sit at the podium following a loss in which he did not play in, and explain himself.
“I’d love for Julian Lewis to come here and tell you what happened. I didn’t bench him. It didn’t happen like that. Julian Lewis didn’t play, so I won’t go there,” Sanders mentioned. “I’m not going to say nothing derogatory about the kid.”
Which one is it? All the head coach is doing is creating problems for himself, which seem to be happening on a more consistent basis these days.
And guess what? His defense actually played well this past week.
The shine has worn off, but what is Colorado going to do?
Deion Sanders has sold the tickets, he’s been in the commercials, he’s beaten cancer, but he’s also losing the spotlight.
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For 53 minutes this past weekend, his Colorado team looked like a group that could hang with a team like Texas Tech that is spending an enormous amount of money on its roster compared to others within the Big 12.
Then, the dam broke.
It assuredly didn’t help in the aftermath that his offensive playbook was spreading throughout the online community while his actual team was on the field playing. Yes, this transpired, thanks to one of his staff members leaving a binder full of plays at the team hotel restaurant on Friday night just thirty minutes outside of Boulder.
While Colorado was on offense, social media was having a field day trying to decipher whether the playbook being shared on message boards and X was actually real. Turns out, it was.
But don’t let that part distract you from the obvious problems in Boulder.
Deion Sanders is no longer the shiny object that caught the college football world by storm at Jackson State, and subsequently, Colorado in his first two years. Networks like FOX and ESPN were clamoring to broadcast games involving the Buffaloes. Now, even though they won’t openly admit it, they are putting them in ‘primetime’ knowing the outcome could turn into a train wreck.
Head coach Deion Sanders of the Colorado Buffaloes looks on during warmups before facing the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta, Ga., on Sept. 3, 2026. (Getty Images)
What was once a massive selling point for the Colorado athletic department has now turned into a problem that will be hard to steer away from. The school understands that Sanders will still bring eyeballs to their program, but the question of whether this experiment should continue into 2027 is one that deserves to be pondered.
Obviously, the plan worked over a two-year period, and even into 2025. While Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter were off to the NFL, the school was prominently featuring their Browns and Jaguars apparel inside the team store that sits below the Colorado athletic facility.
But, living in the past is not going to create success in the future, as we are finding out.
When Coach Prime goes, so does the spotlight on Colorado football
The other problem for the Buffaloes athletic department is that the moment Deion Sanders is no longer in Boulder, the attention will cease to exist at the levels it procured starting in 2023 when Coach Prime was hired.
Money will stop funneling in through sales, and the school will no longer hold the rights to promote Deion Sanders on television networks across the country. I’ve seen more of Deion Sanders alongside Nick Saban and Ben Affleck this season than actual game footage, as that Aflac Duck chimes in at the last second.
Head coach Deion Sanders of the Colorado Buffaloes stands near the set of “First Take” in San Francisco, Calif., on Feb. 6, 2026. (Getty Images)
At some point, Coach Prime is going to walk away. How he does it will be the story, and it’s starting to feel as though the seeds are being planted for his exit, whether that’s through his own words of frustration or donors reaching out to us reporters to complain about the current direction of this football program.
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Two years ago, I was standing on the sidelines as Paul Pierce, C.C. Sabathia, Kevin Garnett and other sports figures roamed the sidelines for Colorado’s showdown against USC in Boulder.
Two years later, Deion Sanders is mentioning that he’d have more respect for media members if we just told the truth about the current state of his program.
Here’s your truth: it’s time to shut this thing down following the 2026 season.
We all enjoyed the ride. But in reality, there has only been one good season at the Boulder circus.
