After an embarrassing loss at home to the Arizona Wildcats last week, Colorado took those country roads down to West Virginia in an attempt to bounce back against Rich Rodriguez’ Mountaineers. Unfortunately for Deion Sanders, he is now headed home with nothing more than a teardrop in his eye, as his herd found their fourth road loss of the season.
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It’s been a disappointing season for the NFL Hall of Famer. His offense, whose average of 22 points per game ranks 109th overall, continues to lack an identity in a post-Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders world, and it’s also averaging six penalties per game.
“We are so much better than what we are doing right now,” Sanders insisted following the 29-22 loss at West Virginia. According to the former Atlanta Falcon, there’s a lack of both desire and discipline in Colorado at the moment, and he’s a bit uncertain about how to fix it.
“If I could put my finger on one thing, it’s that you’ve got to want this thing, man. You’ve got to have a locker room full of kids that really want this thing, a lot more than they want certain things that they enjoy. We’ve done some team bonding, we’ve done everything you can think of to try and flip it. Unfortunately, we haven’t. I haven’t seen the fight going out of these young men whatsoever; we just make stupid mistakes,” Deion admitted in the post-game presser.
To his credit, Colorado continues to see its slice of the national spotlight, and that would have never been the case without Sanders. Nevertheless, this current iteration of the program is not living up to the expectations that he set forth for himself.
“I coach better than this,” Sanders bluntly admitted after noting that he absolutely wants better for both himself and his team. Some would point to the lack of recruitment success from this past offseason, and others might suggest that there’s simply not enough talent on the roster, but Sanders is refuting those ideas as he still believes in the potential of his players.
“We got players that are so much better than the production that we’re putting out. So then, you have to identify the coaches, and that’s us, and it starts with me. I feel like we have the nucleus inside the locker room that we should be getting it done.”
The loss to the Mountaineers means that this will officially go down as a losing season for Sanders and the Buffs, as only Arizona State and Kansas State remain on their schedule. November 22nd will be their final home game of the season, so even though they won’t be able to brag about much this offseason, Colorado can still send everyone home for winter break with a parting gift.
From there, the future of both Sanders and the program will start to come into focus, as the ongoing health issues of the head coach, as well as the recent frustrations, have many wondering as to whether or not he’ll be around for much longer.
