Deion Sanders was the talk of the football world when his Colorado Buffaloes started their season 3-0. Now Colorado has lost five of its last six games, and Sanders’ coaching isn’t looking so great.
Sanders shuffled his coaching staff and changed his offensive play caller before Saturday night’s game against Oregon State, but the results were no better in a 26-19 loss. It was Colorado’s third consecutive loss, it was marked once again by poor clock management, and after the game Sanders acknowledged he needs to coach better.
“This is hard,” Sanders said, via USA Today. “The reason it’s so hard is because you know you’re capable of doing better − playing better, performing better, calling better games, coaching better on my behalf. And you are coming up short when you have enough to get the job done. And it’s painful. It hurts myself, the team and all the coaches and fans.”
A crucial mistake came at the end of the first half, when Colorado had the ball deep in its own territory and could have simply run out the clock and gone into halftime trailing 7-3. Instead, Sanders’ son, quarterback Shedeur Sanders, threw two incomplete passes to stop the clock, forcing Colorado to punt, and Oregon State used the remaining time to score a touchdown and take a 14-3 lead at halftime.
“That’s on me,” Deion Sanders said.
Colorado needs to win at least two of its three remaining games (against Arizona, at Washington State and at Utah) to be bowl eligible. That’s a long shot, and Sanders looks poised to finish his first season at Colorado with a losing record.
