Now that Colorado is 4-4 and no longer considered a lock to make a bowl game (they’ll have to beat a ‘real’ rated team to do it), they’ve changed their play-caller, demoting Sean Lewis, their current OC. Pat Shurmer, currently an analyst, will have to be promoted to an assistant coach to have on-the-field duties during a game.
Both Nebraska and Wisky lost today. A wildcat win would mean we would at most be one game out of first ( depending upon if Illini can upset Minny) after today
Go Cats
Harry
Nebraska looked awful on offense and their defense gave up too many big passes. And the Huskers lost the turnover battle again, 3-0.
Colorado’s losing streak is starting to impact their recruiting, WR Winston Watkins, Jr., rated #87 by ESPN, was the first player to commit to CU after Sanders was hired, he has now decommitted.
Watkins said his reasoning was that he didn’t know if “Prime” would still be there when he enrolled. However I agree with Mike that it’s Likely the losses has taken some of the electricity out of attending Colorado. One still has to think that Sanders can bring in NIL money as well as anyone
The early line has the Cats favored by 1 over Purdue. I believe it’s the first time NU has been favored this year over a BiG team
Harry
You don’t think Texas A$M might make a bid for Coach Prime, do you?
When the school is willing to pay $75 mm to get a new coach, few things that the Aggie’s do would surprise me . You can bet that the money is not coming out of taxpayer funds either.
Harry
I don’t know if it was mentioned here, but 2 schools had a first year coach that came from FCS taking over teams that were 1-11 in 2022. One coach BOUGHT an entire team via the transfer portal/NIL and the other inherited a few transfers. The first was a head coach at the previous level and other was just a coordinator. Both were 4-5 as of Friday.
Obviously the first is Colorado and the second is us.
It is an interesting observation, but the significant difference is that one was recruited to be an FBS head coach. The other had no idea that he was going to end up in that role when he took the DC job. IMHO, the difference is that Sanders should be given some slack because it his first year on the job. Braun on the other hand should win a coach of the year award because he took a bunch of kids that the administration essentially abandoned and gave them something to play for - each other.
Jeff
Great post Jeff!! Well said! #RemoveTheTag!
Though we should keep in mind NU probably had about an easy schedule as they could have had
2 cream puffs, no Ohio state or Michigan Only really strong teams we played were PSU and Duke
Still Cats and Braun deserve a ton of credit I expected 2-10 ; maybe 3-9 in a season that should have fallen apart but didn’t
Harry
Io_a who is leading the west has/had an easier schedule.
Maryland is MUCH better than Sparty and Duke with a healthy QB is MUCH better than Iowa State. Io_a also got an extra home game with Wrigley.
I don’t think any slack is needed, I’d call 2023 a success for CU even if they don’t go to a bowl game. The season was sold out at home. They’ve been the media darling and still get good TV numbers even though they’re extremely unlikely to go to a bowl game. (The bowls have to be sad about that, CU fans would have bought a lot of seats.) Dozens of reporters learned how to spell schadenfreude.
The real questions are: Can CU build on their 2023 successes? Will they be able to recruit better players? Who takes over at QB? Will they be competitive in the rebuilt Big Twelve?
I’m hoping the Big Ten coaches and media gives Braun proper consideration for coach of the year honors, I don’t hold out a lot of hope that the national media will.
#removethetag
I think any slack for Sanders will be his toxicity as he seems to more than willing to throw players and coaches under the bus.
After the start expectations were too high, which is most teams until they get into the meat of their schedule. How many 4-0 teams faded to 5-7 once they get into conference play? Poor Maryland, although they will finish with at least 6 wins after starting 5-0.
Even perceived “great” early season wins might actually be a meh win as that opponent was not as good as advertised.
Deion may have a big mouth and says a bunch of stuff that I don’t agree with ,but he showed a lot of smarts and class when he called out how horrible it was to have death threats against the player that knocked out Hunter Not sure many coaches would have said that as loudly as he did
Harry
Deion also may have done a service long term to college football and the NCAA (if it survives) by showing just how far the rules can be bent. He’s turned them into a pretzel!
And he’s been far more above board about what he’s doing and how he’s doing it than most SEC programs.
He seems ‘off the cuff’ a lot, but I suspect he’s far more calculating in his actions and words. I think he forced the NFL to make changes to player celebration rules, college football needs to do the same.
I haven’t heard any cheating on the rules by Deion, just taking full advantage of the rules. Remember Johnny Majors bent the rules so much to help win the #1 ranking in 1976 that the NCAA changed the rules. ( not sure if the ncaa did the same with Harbaugh having practices in the south )
Harry