Noah Fenske had his luggage with him Saturday. It wasn’t Louis.
“Just Under Armour,” the former CU Buffs offensive lineman texted me from his vacation in Nashville.
While on the road with his fiancée, Fenske’s also been keeping an eye on an old CU teammate, Alex Harkey. Oregon’s starting right tackle? Yeah, he used to be a Buff.
Harkey, a 6-foot-6, 327-pound redshirt senior, is prepping for a Friday night showdown with Indiana — and another former CU player, the Hoosiers’ Kahlil Benson — in one College Football Playoff semifinal. The Ducks’ bruiser helped Oregon put up 245 passing yards and convert four fourth-down conversions on The Best Defense Money Can Buy, blanking Texas Tech 23-0 in the Orange Bowl.
He’d transferred into CU as a 305-pounder out of Tyler (Texas) Junior College, a 3-star who was weighing offers from Middle Tennessee and Old Dominion. After appearing in 12 games, largely as a reserve guard, Harkey was one of the kids from CU’s 2022 recruiting class swept out in the great Deion Sanders roster purge during the spring of 2023.
Fenske, who played in seven games with the Buffs in ’22, was Harkey’s roommate at CU. He got swept away, too. Under Armour was out, Louis Vuitton luggage was in.
“(Harkey has) done incredible, man,” Fenske gushed. “Because when he first came in (to CU), he wasn’t what he is now. And just seeing his transformation from being a (backup) guard on a 1-11 team to being a first-round or second-round (NFL) draft pick …”
Big Alex could play. So could wideout Jordyn Tyson (Arizona State). And cornerback Simeon Harris (Fresno State). And quarterback Owen McCown, once he’d had some more brisket. McCown, who played as a wafer-thin true freshman at CU in ’22, threw for 30 touchdowns at UTSA this past fall — including three in a 57-20 win over Florida International in the First Responder Bowl.
“We just stay connected, support each other’s success,” Harris, who still belongs to a group chat of former Buffs, told me over the weekend. “You’ve got to expect the unexpected. That (purge) hit us all in the mouth.”
CU fans talk a lot — a lot — about 1-11 in 2022. About rock bottom. About Coach Prime lighting the candle for the climb out of obscurity.
All of it true. But what we won’t talk as much about is just how young that 2022 team actually was. Heading into the opener, 33 of the 81 dudes on that CU depth chart were freshmen. Twenty-three were sophomores. It showed.
“I get that it’s a multimillion-dollar business,” Fenske said. “But what’s missing in college football is the developmental piece to it. For Philip Rivers to come back (to the NFL) after five years (retired) and be better than half the QBs in the NFL, that’s not a talent issue. That’s a development issue …
“I want (the Buffs) to do well, but man, they missed out. They really missed out on (Harkey). Even when he wasn’t a starter, he always kind of carried himself with a chip on his shoulder. He wanted to get better. He knows ball. He was a great person to be around.”
Hindsight is a fickle mistress. You don’t have 2023’s sugar rush and 2024’s Big 12 title chase without Coach Prime. Or without Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders, if we’re being frank about it.
Yet you also could field a pretty darned good college football lineup out of players who left CU’s program following the 2022, 2023 and 2024 seasons. Check out tthese Post-Prime All-Stars, all ex-Buffs, and their 2025 stat lines:
OFFENSE
QB — Owen McCown, UTSA, 30 TD passes, 7 interceptions
RB — Anthony Hankerson, Oregon State, 1,086 rushing yards
LT — Isaiah Jatta, BYU, 64.1 Pro Football Focus grade
LG — Zack Owens, Mississippi State, 56.0 PFF grade
C — Van Wells, Oregon State, 63.6 PFF grade
RG/RT — Kahlil Benson, Indiana, 72.5 PFF grade
RT — Alex Harkey, Oregon, 64.2 PFF grade
TE — Seydou Traore, Mississippi State, five TD catches
TE — Chamon Metayer, Arizona State, four TD catches
WR — Jordyn Tyson, Arizona State, eight TD catches
WR — Chase Sowell, Iowa State, 500 receiving yards
DEFENSE
DL — Dayon Hayes, Texas A&M, four sacks
DL — Chazz Wallace, NC State, 70.9 PFF grade
DL — Shakaun Bowser, UTEP, 62.3 PFF grade
LB — Nikhai Hill-Green, Alabama, two forced fumbles
LB — Jeremy Mack Jr., Old Dominion, six sacks
LB — Johnny Chaney Jr., FIU, three sacks
CB — Colton Hood, Tennessee, eight pass break-ups
CB — Simeon Harris, Fresno State, five interceptions
CB — Kyndrich Breedlove, Arizona State, five pass break-ups
S — Trevor Woods, Jacksonville State, three forced fumbles
S — Myles Slusher, Purdue, three pass break-ups
It’s a little light up front defensively, granted. But that’s not a bad offensive bunch. It’s probably a better starting 11, McCown included, than what Pencil Pat Shurmur trotted out this past fall.
“I’m not the only one that’s thought that,” Fenske chuckled.
“It’s funny how we all panned out,” Harris added. “But we all (had) wanted to be at CU.”
Meanwhile, the Buffs’ door keeps revolving. According to the 247Sports.com database, CU had seen 30 more players declare for the portal as of Saturday morning. That group included key cogs such as cornerback DJ McKinney, safety Tawfiq Byard, defensive end London Merriott, defensive end Brandon Davis-Swain, wideout Omarion Miller, wideout/all-purpose back Dre’Lon Miller — all of whom could make a future Post-Prime starting 11.
Meanwhile, the Buffs are going to need to import at least 30, and maybe 35-45 transfers, just to fill out a roster whose depth was frequently tested last autumn.
History says they’ll find some dawgs. And recent history says they’ll need twice as many as a year ago.
“I think (CU) is about to go through another rebuild situation,” Harris noted.
Still, the Bulldogs’ defensive back doesn’t harbor any grudges toward Sanders, nor CU. Neither does Fenske, really, despite his exit.
“If I didn’t have the portal, I’m not in the spot I am today,” Fenske said. “The grass isn’t always greener for some. And I would advise people who are going into that position to really think about what they’re doing and to really take a chance on themselves and see if they can develop …
“Maybe the best thing for me was to go down (a level) and be humbled, to re-learn the game of football in a way and re-learn what life is about.”
The Big Guy works in mysterious ways, sometimes. Fenske just wrapped up his eligibility at Southern Illinois, having been named to the Missouri Valley Conference’s second-team offense and to the first team of the league’s Scholar-Athlete squad, thanks to a 4.0 GPA.
Noah also got engaged. He became a foster parent. He opened an athletic training facility, NJF Sports Performance. Just because you’re traveling with Under Armour bags doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the journey. However winding.
“I want those guys (at CU) to do well,” the lineman said. “Boulder was really good to me, and I’m glad that Boulder is doing a little better than it was before I got there. It would be foolish for me to be super cynical about that. I want to see (CU) do well. I want to see that area flourish because it was very welcoming to me.”
Let’s hope so. For Auld Lang Prime.
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