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Deion Sanders’ second appearance in Fort Worth as the head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes was nothing like his first, and the man who likes to say “We comin’” left town with his 16th defeat since he arrived in Boulder.
The Colorado Buffaloes are now 15-16 under Deion, and currently not an average team.
Like a few other games they’ve played this season, the Buffaloes had a big lead on Saturday night against TCU and blew it to lose 35-21.
(By the way: To all of those who bet TCU to cover on Saturday, thank your God repeatedly. TCU faced a fourth-and-1 with 26 seconds remaining at the Colorado 21, and quarterback Josh Hoover’s pass into the end zone was narrowly caught by receiver Eric McAlister for a brutal backdoor cover of a 13.5-point line.)
Colorado is now 2-4, and in this era of big money coaches, Deion has no choice but to wear this one. Typically, that’s not his strength.
“We gotta’ do a better job,” Deion said after the game. “I’m racking my brain trying to figure this out.”
Although he was sitting in the same chair, in the same spot, Deion sounded nothing like the man who was fearlessly full of it, and himself, after Colorado defeated TCU by three points on Sept. 2, 2023, in front of a stadium-record crowd of 53,294.
On that afternoon, and for the next three weeks, Deion was the culture-changing phenom. Since then, he’s just another head coach trying to figure it out.
Since then, he’s just another head coach who is learning that winning at Colorado is one of the harder tasks in major college football. This job has chewed up plenty of good men before he arrived.
All of the electricity, vibes and crash-the-establishment momentum that began when Deion smacked TCU in his first game as Colorado’s coach have evaporated behind nothing but losses. Losses that have made all of those viral clips of Deion reinventing the profession look like what they are — talk.
Colorado on 3-6 skid
As a talker, this is a brilliant person who commands an audience and a camera as well as any man who has ever been a head coach. As a head coach, you are your record. That’s the job.
After starting the 2024 season 8-2, Colorado is 3-6 in its past nine games. Four of those defeats are by double-digit margins.
And he is 1-8 at Colorado against ranked opponents. The one win? At TCU in 2023, a team that ended the season with a losing record and did not qualify for a bowl.
On Saturday night he did not sound like the brash man who had the benefit of his son, Shedeur, at quarterback and future Heisman Trophy-winning receiver/defensive back Travis Hunter on his team. On Saturday night, Deion was your standard frustrated head coach who is trying to get an OK team to perform above its head.
“Mentality and the attitude. But the thing about it, if I’m tolerating it, it means I’m a part of it,” he said. “I have to do a better job of putting a stop to it when I see it.”
On Saturday night, Colorado led 14-0 late in the second quarter before it all went to hell in a barrage of big, and dumb, plays.
“It starts in practice. It’s frustrating because I’m seeing what you’re seeing,” said the resident of Prosper.
That’s right; Deion does not live in Boulder full time. He still lives much of the year in Prosper. Because he can.
“It’s no disrespect to TCU, their quarterback made plays, but I felt like we were the better team,” he said.
Turnovers killed Colorado vs. TCU
Colorado may have been better than TCU, but the 4-0 turnover margin will kill that every day.
Colorado had plenty of chances to beat TCU, but when the game had to be won, Deion’s team could not do it.
“I’m not targeting my coaching staff; we need to see more out of me as well,” Sanders said. “We get to those moments, and we seem to faint instead of overcoming that type of adversity.”
There was no one, or two, specific moments where anyone could say that Deion lost the game for his team.
This was a team loss. Because his team isn’t that good. It’s not bad, but it’s not good. And this team, and staff, are entirely his.
At 2-4 overall and 0-3 in the Big 12, whatever the school and the team hoped for this season is effectively gone. The goal now is to reach any bowl, and avoid a second losing record in three years under Deion.
Deion is correct in that win or lose people will talk about Colorado. But the more CU loses, the more the talk will be a narrative that he won’t like. Because that’s college football.
Because the talk won’t be “We comin’.”
It will be “You leavin’.”
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Mac Engel
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