SALT LAKE CITY – Saturday night wasn’t the first time Colorado has been blown out since Deion Sanders took over as head coach.
It was perhaps the most hopeless defeat of the Coach Prime era, however.
“This is bad,” Sanders said after the Buffaloes were thumped by Utah 53-7 at Rice-Eccles Stadium. “This is probably the worst beating I’ve ever had, except for when my momma whooped me as a kid.”
Sanders then rattled off some of the most significant stats of the night.
Utah rushed for 422 yards.
“You ain’t winning (with that),” Sanders said.
CU finished with 140 total yards.
“You’re not winning,” he said.
Utah had 587 yards in total offense.
“You’re not winning,” he said.
CU’s special teams gave up a fake punt and had a punt blocked.
“You’re not winning,” he said again.
“All three phases, we got our butts kicked,” he said. “Kicked.”
Sanders fell to 16-17 in his three seasons as CU’s head coach (3-5, 1-4 Big 12 this year), but in most of those losses, the Buffs were competitive, including eight one-score losses.
The Buffs were routed twice in his first season (2023) with a 42-6 loss at Oregon and a 56-14 loss at Washington State. At that point, however, CU was a rebuilding program with two superstars – quarterback Shedeur Sanders and receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter – who were going to be Buffs for another year.
In this one, Utah simply dominated a Buffs team that lacks leadership and any sort of identity.
“It’ll be addressed,” Sanders said. “It’s been addressed and it’ll be addressed even more until I get it all out of me.”
This was CU’s worst loss since Washington crushed the pre-Sanders Buffs, 54-7, on Nov. 19, 2022. The Buffs had their largest halftime deficit (43-0) since Oct. 27, 2012, at Oregon.
There are glaring issues all over the field for the Buffs, but Sanders pointed the finger at himself.
“Well, that starts with me,” he said. “It starts with the coaching staff. Let’s forget the guys (players) for a minute. Let’s start at the top.”
Asked what he has to do better, Sanders said, “I’m trying to figure that one out. I really am.”
He and the Buffs had hoped they figured it out coming into this game. CU brought confidence and momentum to Salt Lake City after an impressive 24-17 win against then-No. 22 Iowa State on Oct. 11.
After that win, the Buffs had two weeks to prepare for the Utes, who were coming off an emotional and physical loss to rival BYU a week ago.
Yet, with all that time to prepare, the Buffs looked unprepared on both sides of the ball.
“The way we practiced, the way we prepared, there’s no way that should have happened,” Sanders said. “There’s no way. The physicalness that we exuded all week long, there’s no way.”
Utah is one of the most physical teams in the Big 12, so the Buffs cranked up the physicality in practice. They even had quarterbacks, who are usually protected from hitting, go live in practice.
“We practiced real hard this week,” CU quarterback Kaidon Salter. “I feel like I did have a great week of practice. O-line had a great week of practice. Receivers did pretty well and even on the defensive side, it was all there this week at practice, but today was most definitely blindsided.”
Nothing the Buffs did prepared them for the relentless Utes, who were without starting quarterback Devon Dampier, but didn’t miss a beat with true freshman Byrd Ficklin.
Ficklin racked up 291 yards in total offense (151 rushing, 140 passing) and accounted for three touchdowns.
Utah’s 422 rushing yards and 587 total yards were the most allowed by CU during the Sanders era. The Buffs’ 140 yards in total offense was the lowest total for the program since Oct. 23, 2021, at California.
Salter said he completed at least 60 percent of his passes every day in practice this past week. Against the Utes, he was 9-for-22 (41%) for 37 yards and an interception, while being sacked five times. Overall, Utah had seven sacks, getting backup Ryan Staub twice.
The Buffs have to regroup in a hurry with Arizona coming to Boulder on Saturday.
Sanders couldn’t remember his message to the team, but said, “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t pleasant.”
“All this hoopla, all this ya-ya, and all this want-to-look-good and all this stuff, it don’t work unless you balling,” he said. “We in that kind of generation right now. Everybody wants to look good and they want to get paid, but you gotta ball. You gotta play. That constitutes that. And we gotta figure this out like now. Now.”