A bye week gave Colorado head coach Deion Sanders an opportunity to spend time at his home in Texas and fish “like crazy.”
There was an unfortunate casualty during his time away, though.
“I caught a turtle one time by the foot,” Sanders said during his weekly press conference on Tuesday. “I don’t know how that happened, but he’s no longer with us.”
Despite that, it was a successful bye week for Sanders and his Buffaloes (3-4, 1-3 Big 12), who return to action with a trip to Utah (5-2, 2-2) on Saturday at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City (8:15 p.m., ESPN).
Prior to the break, CU snapped a two-game skid with a 24-17 upset of then-No. 22 Iowa State on Oct. 11, and that’s led to spirited practices.
“I’m happy with the way they’re practicing, the way they’re in the meetings, how attentive they are,” Sanders said. “I’m seeing some changes of personalities just in the practice habits and how physical they are and what they’re going through and to in practice. So, I’m happy with what I’ve seen for the last three days.”
Much of CU’s season to this point has been marked by missed opportunities. Close losses to Georgia Tech (now 7-0 and ranked No. 7), BYU (7-0, No. 10) and TCU (5-2) have put the Buffs in a tough spot going into the final five weeks. But, finishing against Iowa State (5-2) was significant.
“I feel like everybody’s starting to buy in now,” receiver-turned-running back Kam Mikell said. “I just felt like maybe it was just a little bit of people that wasn’t believing. I know our word is ‘believe’ all the time … and now, like, ever since we got that win, especially during the game, you could just kind of tell with everybody’s momentum and energy, you could tell it was just a shift.”
A shift was needed for the Buffs to keep hope alive for bowl eligibility, because the road ahead isn’t easy. After the trip to Utah, which fell out of the Associated Press Top 25 with a loss to BYU, CU will have home games against Arizona (4-3, 1-3) and No. 24 Arizona State (5-2, 3-1), and road trips to West Virginia (2-5, 0-4) and Kansas State (3-4, 2-2).
“We definitely flipped the switch (against Iowa State) and I feel like everybody’s gonna start seeing that throughout the season,” defensive end London Merritt said. “That game was a turning point of our season. Practice, definitely, we’re working hard, harder than we ever worked. It’s getting heated, but at the end of the day, it’s all love and we know what we got to do.”
One win, of course, doesn’t cure everything that has plagued the Buffs to this point.
CU is still near the bottom of the Big 12 Conference in scoring (14th, 24.9 points per game) and ranks just 10th in scoring defense (23.7).
Quarterback Kaidon Salter had a great game against Iowa State, but has been inconsistent. The Buffs have struggled to find consistency at linebacker and in the secondary, too.
“Several positions,” Sanders said when asked where he wants to see the most improvement. “I don’t want to identify those positions, but it’s probably the same ones you’ve been criticizing. I’m looking for improvement in those positions, consistency in certain positions.”
While there is plenty of work ahead, Sanders comes out of the bye week optimistic that the Buffs have what it takes to carry momentum from the Iowa State game and keep on winning.
“I know where we want to be, I know what we should be,” he said. “Am I ecstatic right now with where we are? No, but I’m not upset either, because I know what we have in that locker room and on this coaching staff. Could we be better? So much. Should we have won several of the games that we lost? Yes.
“I can’t identify one game that (the opposing) team was better than us and they kicked our butts. I can’t identify that. So I’m not happy with where we are, but I’m happy with where we’re going because you got to think about the improvement.”