Colorado Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders went viral (as he is wont to do) late last week for refusing to answer questions from certain reporters.
Sanders apparently didn't like the coverage of his program from those reporters.
In one instance, Sanders childishly refused to speak to a reporter that he claimed he "has love for" because he didn't like where the reporter's company (CBS Sports) ranked him in a preseason list of coach rankings (I had no clue that a single coach in college football even noticed those rankings...but I guess Sanders, who appears to suffer from Peter Pan Syndrome, does).
Sanders will probably throw another toddler-like fit when he sees what ESPN's Bill Connelly wrote about his program this week.
While detailing Colorado's chances of sustaining the improvements the program made last year (going from 1-11 in 2022 to 4-8 in 2023), Connelly noted that the Buffaloes are receiving hype this summer due in part to inflated ratings in the new EA Sports College Football video game.
Connelly also pointed out that Colorado benefited from "false hype" in 2023 thanks to some early-season wins against teams that finished the year with losing records.
"It's difficult to talk about Colorado in a constructive way at the moment," wrote Connelly . "On one hand, Deion Sanders' transfer-dependent Buffaloes were boosted by false hype early in 2023; they found themselves in the AP top 20 and earned millions of headlines, page views and celebrity visits during a 3-0 start, but the teams they beat all finished the season with losing records. Once the real opponents showed up on the schedule, the wins stopped ."
"Heading into 2024, they're once again receiving hype they haven't earned -- this time primarily from the EA Sports College Football 25 game that lavished high rankings on quarterback Shedeur Sanders and do-everything Travis Hunter and made them one of the 20 most talented teams in the game," continued Connelly. " But they almost certainly aren't a top-20 team. Improving into the 50s or 60s might not make much of a difference in the win total, but it would still represent improvement, and it still gets them on this list ."
To Connelly's credit, he's not slamming Colorado and Sanders without also giving the program some credit for the improvements that were made last season in Sanders' first year leading the program.
Connelly is just simply pointing out facts -- Colorado doesn't deserve anywhere close to the amount of hype that they're receiving. The Buffaloes should be talked about nationally with the likes of Rutgers, Colorado State, Baylor, and Houston.
The only reason that Colorado is receiving so much hype/attention ahead of the season is because of the sideshow that Sanders has created in Boulder. It's certainly not because the program is a threat to any of the actual national championship contenders.
Sanders was a tremendous competitor as a player -- one of the best in the history of sports. I have a ton of respect for Sanders the football player and the baseball player. But as a head coach, he's in over his head.
Coach Prime needs to learn how to take constructive criticism and ignore criticism that doesn't matter (like subjective coach rankings in July/August) or else he's going to be spending more time arguing with reporters about nonsense and searching for headlines on the internet then actually coaching his team.
Though I think we all know that's a lesson that Sanders won't be learning anytime soon. And I'm sure he'll have something to say about Connelly's reality check, even though it's completely accurate -- the hype around the Buffaloes hasn't been earned. Not even a little bit.
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