Colorado and Deion Sanders are winning in a way few saw coming

He hasn’t grilled any reporters on whether they believe. None of his postgame interviews have gone viral.

He hasn’t shared a stage with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or had Lil Wayne lead his team onto the field. His team is garnering around half the TV viewers it did a season ago.

But Deion Sanders and Colorado? The team that finished alone in last place in the Pac-12 last season?

The Buffaloes have been handing out beatings, quietly fielding an improved 5-2 team that has played its way into the thick of the Big 12 title race with five games remaining.

“We’re not who we used to be. But we sure ain’t where we wanna be,” Sanders said Saturday after routing Arizona 34-7 in Tucson.

Shedeur Sanders (2) and wide receiver Travis Hunter (12) have helped Colorado open 3-1 in Big 12 play. (Mark J. Rebilas / Imagn Images)

Of course, it’s not like he’s avoiding headlines. He did go out of his way to needle former president Barack Obama after Obama told a crowd last Friday in Tucson that Colorado has “a couple good players” and people shouldn’t “bet against the Wildcats.”

“President, I heard what you said. Come on,” Sanders said after the Buffs’ win the next day. “We got more than two good players. … Somebody gave him some great statistics, but President, come on, man. You my man. I love you, appreciate you, but come on, dog.”

It’s easy to go after a former president (and it lands a lot better) when your team is playing the way the Buffaloes have played since a disastrous loss at rival Nebraska in Week 2, when the Cornhuskers ran up a 28-0 halftime lead in a 28-10 win.

Nebraska sacked quarterback Shedeur Sanders six times. The Buffaloes ran for 16 yards. Sanders threw an ugly pick six early in the game and lobbed criticism at his offensive line afterward. It looked a lot like the 4-8 team from a year ago. The season looked like it had the simmering potential to go awry.

GO DEEPER

In Deion Sanders’ second year at Colorado, what will resonate most? Results

Since then?

Colorado routed rival Colorado State in Fort Collins, beat Baylor on a miracle Hail Mary and went to UCF as a two-touchdown underdog and won by 27.

It hosted Kansas State, a Big 12 title contender, and rallied from a 10-point, fourth-quarter deficit to take the lead before surrendering a game-winning touchdown pass with just over two minutes to play.

And last week, as an underdog, it went to Arizona and smacked another conference opponent to improve to 3-1 in Big 12 play, with already two more conference wins logged than a season ago.

A bowl game looks near certain. It would be Colorado’s first since going 4-2 in the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season. Competing for a conference title doesn’t appear likely but is still possible. The Buffs are one of six league teams that are undefeated or have one loss in conference play.

Of the remaining games, only the next two — at home against Cincinnati and at Texas Tech — come against teams with more than one conference win this season.

Colorado has done it while weathering a host of injuries to its best position group and best player. Receivers Jimmy Horn Jr. and Travis Hunter — a two-way star who is also the Buffaloes’ best defender and in contention for the Heisman Trophy — have been sidelined. Sophomore receiver Omarion Miller is out for the season.

The offensive line is still the team’s biggest issue. It allowed quarterbacks to be pressured on 36.7 percent of dropbacks last season, which ranked 110th nationally, per TruMedia. This year, with four new starters, it improved to just 100th, at 34 percent.

Despite that though, Shedeur Sanders, one of Deion’s two sons on the team, has kept playing at an elite level. He’s fourth nationally in completion percentage and 16th in passer rating, with 19 touchdowns and six interceptions. Other than the interceptions, his passing numbers are up in every area compared with last season.

Sanders has still been sacked 25 times, more than all but three teams. And in the run game, backs are gaining just 1.29 yards before contact (117th nationally). That number was 1.74 last year, good for 95th.

But despite those continued struggles, Colorado has found something close to a functional running game. Last year, it was a non-factor for the entire season. Since the loss to Nebraska, the Buffs have rushed for at least 90 yards in four of five games after doing that three times all last season. In three of those games, they averaged more than 3.75 yards a carry. The offense did that twice all last season.

The biggest difference, though, has been the addition of transfers on defense such as linebacker Nikhai Hill-Green, cornerback DJ McKinney to start opposite Hunter and edge rusher additions BJ Green II, Samuel Okunlola and Dayon Hayes.

The Buffaloes took 52 scholarship transfers in Sanders’ first offseason and followed it up with 43 this year. One way or another, the defense turned over all but three starters from last year. One of those is Sanders’ son Shilo, who missed three games after breaking his arm in the loss to Nebraska and struggled when he returned in the loss to Kansas State.

“I thought he played horrible,” Deion Sanders said. “I thought he was rusty.”

Sanders brought Shilo with him to his postgame news conference after the win at Arizona, though, and said he was proud of how he rebounded.

Those new faces on defense, combined with first-time coordinator Rob Livingston who arrived from the Cincinnati Bengals this offseason, have revitalized the Buffaloes defense. Livingston had been with the Bengals since 2012 but never called a play.

Last year, Colorado ranked 115th in yards per play and 124th in scoring defense. It gave up 34 points or more in a half four times. More often, it was the Buffs defense being blitzed.

This year, the Buffs are up 53 spots to 62nd nationally in yards per play and 47th in scoring defense, up 77 spots.

Saturday, they sacked Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita seven times and held the Wildcats to a season-low seven points. And they did it playing the second half without Hunter, who sat as a precautionary measure with a shoulder injury.

There were pressing questions about how a team with such a transient roster would hold together after a shaky start against North Dakota State and the beatdown from Nebraska instead of signs this was coming.

But Colorado hasn’t flinched. Instead, it’s playing the best football of the Sanders era by far and racking up wins in a hurry.

Saturday, it faces a Cincinnati team that’s 5-2. A win would put the Buffaloes into a bowl game for just the third time since 2007, in Sanders’ second season after taking over the worst Power 5 team in college football.

Sure, Sanders, behind his Blenders sunglasses, can always shoot back to the forefront of discourse in a second. Continuing to win will do that, too. Though the Buffaloes haven’t stirred the same fascination and aren’t the same television draw as they were a season ago, on the field, they’ve offered far more substance.