The Colorado Buffaloes are now 2-3 after losing a very winnable game at home against the No. 25 BYU Cougars this past weekend.
The Buffs had their chances. In fact, they went into halftime with a 14-10 lead.
The second half saw Deion Sanders’ team score just seven points, though, while the defense gave up 14. And yet still, Colorado had its chances in the fourth quarter.
Quarterback Kaidon Salter was sacked for a loss of 22 on a third and three, which was a backbreaker with 12:08 to go in the game. BYU then missed a field goal, but the Buffaloes’ final two offensive possessions ended in a punt and an interception.
Deion Sanders passed the responsibility of a coach onto his players
After the game, Sanders suggested that he felt his team was better than BYU but just couldn’t live up to the big moments in the game.
“I can’t say I’m highly upset, I’m upset with a few things, but sometimes when it seems like you have more talent, but you didn’t quite win the game, it makes it feel somewhat awkward,” he said in the post-game news conference (h/t On3). “We had opportunities, a tremendous amount of opportunities, but nevertheless, we didn’t cash in on it. And sometimes it felt like the moment was just too big for some of our athletes. And they got to do something about that.”
Coach Prime says his athletes need to do something about finding a way to step up in those big moments, but isn’t that what coaching is all about?
He’s essentially passing the buck on this massive responsibility, especially when considering the fact that most, if not all, of these players are in Boulder specifically to receive a high level of coaching and instruction from him.
Pat Shurmur calls the offense. Robert Livingston calls the defense. It’s Sanders who is supposed to be the “CEO” of the team. He’s the hype man, for better or worse, so if his players weren’t ready for these big spots, it’s ultimately up to him to look in the mirror.
Of course, admitting faults is not what the man nicknamed “Prime Time” is known for, so there’s really no reason to expect anything different from Colorado for the rest of this season.
Now ranked 15th out of 16 teams in the Big 12, up next for the Buffs is a 3-1 TCU team.
