Do timeouts make excellent stocking stuffers? Because Deion Sanders is going back to Texas with two of them in his back pocket.
The best Christmas gift Coach Prime can give CU Buffs fans right now is a total overhaul.
Starting with the coaching staff. Especially with the coaching staff.
The Buffs, whose season ended with a scrappy 24-14 loss at Kansas State on Saturday afternoon, badly need a game-manager.
Not just at QB.
At head coach.
Coach Prime would make a great NFL general manager. He’s a pretty solid college one already. But as a game-day coach, if 2025 taught us anything, it’s that more support is needed. Badly.
Under Sanders, the Buffs are 6-10 in games decided by 10 points or fewer. He’s now 1-5 in those games without Shedeur as his QB1. He’s 3-10 at CU with someone other than his son as the starting signal-caller.
One hand, the Buffs were in four one-score games this year. On the other, they lost three of them.
A starting NFL QB (Shedeur), a generational athlete (Travis Hunter) and a slew of pro-level targets (LaJohntay Wester, Will Sheppard) can mask an awful lot of coaching blemishes.
Take that away, though, and you get … well, 3-9. And a second 1-8 league finish over the last three seasons.
The Big 12 is a league of middleweights and fine margins. Which means, terms of talent/personnel, CU really isn’t that far away.
It’s just that when you fall just short week after week, the mental stuff starts building in the back of your head the way tartar builds along the gum line. The doubt creeps. The questions linger.
CU had a plan for Kansas State (6-6) — run Kaidon Salter in the snow and see if that unlocks anything. The Buffs kept on the ground in miserable conditions over nine of their first 11 plays. Just like in the script.
In the fourth quarter of a game they trailed 10-7, CU threw it nine times and ran it eight. K-State, meanwhile, went into business mode, just as Arizona State did at Folsom Field the weekend before. Of the Wildcats’ 206 rushing yards on the day, 98 came over the final stanza.
In the meantime, though, K-State tried to give CU the game, didn’t they? The Buffs just struggled to take it.
Just like they struggled to tackle. Like they struggled get to get a field goal or a punt off in the snow globe that was Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
There will be a lot of soul-searching, a lot of social posts, a lot of hot takes as to what went wrong with Coach Prime’s Year 3.
Landing a 5-star prep QB in Julian Lewis was the fun part, but the next trick is developing him. While the in-game progress from April to November has been tangible and real, the jury’s still out. When it was clear from the spring that more time was needed, Salter became the “bridge” guy. Only it turned out to bridge to nowhere.
This much is clear as day, especially after K-State: Whomever gets to run the offense in 2026 would be wise to feature more of junior wide receiver Omarion Miller, who torched the Wildcats to the tune of seven catches for 120 receiving yards despite swirling winds.
Miller through his first 10 games had collected 23 first downs on his first 37 catches, or one every 1.6 grabs.
Point of comparison: Last fall, Travis Hunter had 51 first downs on 96 grabs — one every 1.88 receptions. LaJohntay Wester: 46 on 74 grabs — a first down every 1.6. Will Sheppard — 26 on 48 grabs for a first down every 1.85 catches.
Coach Prime looked miserable out there, but his team brought their snow pants early. With nothing to play for but pride, the Buffs came out in the spirit of what Sanders had promised in the summer — angry on the ground, relentless at the line of scrimmage.
Over the first half, the chuck-and-duck Buffs outrushed Kansas State 84-59 in the Wildcats’ backyard. CU went into the break with more first downs converted (10-5), more total yards (162-114) and, maybe more impressively, having committed zero penalties to K-State’s three.
Meanwhile, a Wildcat team that ran for 427 yards against Utah was stuck at 67 on the ground halfway through the third stanza. Alas, with former Erie star Blake Barnett sprinkled in on designed QB runs to spell an inconsistent Avery Johnson, the hosts salted a chilly game away on the ground late.
Once K-State wrestled back control of the clock, the Buffs couldn’t buy a stop. Or a salve. Coach Prime again needed another voice — either a coach in his ear or a coach on the field, the way Shedeur was for all those years.
In the end, CU had two timeouts left over the final 45 seconds, down 10. Sanders didn’t use either. Like most CU fans, he was ready to turn the page and go home. The next chapter is the one that will define his legacy. For better or for worse.