Deion Sanders believes Colorado will rise in 2024. Opposing coaches predict

By David Ubben, Bruce Feldman and Justin Williams

Deion Sanders stood in front of the Colorado football team in the visiting locker room moments before the Buffs took the field for their season finale last Saturday at Utah. The head coach was decked out in all black, save for a pair of custom gold Nike shoes.

The season began with the Book of Genesis, he told his team, but now Colorado had reached the Book of Revelation.

“There’s a lot of folks that started out great and done one thing at the end to just mess it all up. There’s a lot of folks that started out bad and did one thing at the end to make it all good,” he added, nodding his head. “You can make everybody forget every dern thing today. And it could be a heck of a plane ride (home).”

Instead, Colorado lost to the Utes 23-17, completing a fall of biblical proportions. The Buffaloes closed the season with six losses in a row and eight in their last nine games.

They were the toast of college of football in September. Coach Prime was a phenomenon, seen everywhere from “60 Minutes” to national California Almonds ads. Daily sports talk pondered whether Shedeur Sanders — Deion’s son and the Buffs starting quarterback — was a Heisman Trophy contender and the best NFL prospect at his position and lauded wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter for resurrecting the two-way star. Fox and ESPN’s Saturday pregame shows jockeyed for position on the scenic Boulder campus, much like the celebrities and influencers on Colorado’s sideline.

In a sport regularly dominated by blue bloods and familiar storylines, Colorado and Coach Prime were an injection of new energy. Love it or hate it, and there was plenty of both, people tuned in, and Sanders played to the crowd. He pounded the table at his postgame news conference following Colorado’s season-opening upset of TCU and asked: “Do you believe?”

GO DEEPER

Deion Sanders mania was at its peak — then came losses. How did he respond?

But now, after a 4-8 season that exposed the holes in Colorado’s roster and in Sanders’ ability to pull the right strings from the sidelines, a different question might be asked: Will Colorado be any better in 2024?

“We didn’t accomplish what we wanted, but we accomplished what we needed. I think hope is instilled, tremendously, in this city, in the student body, within this team, within this building and you see the direction that we’re headed,” Sanders said before his team’s loss to Utah.

Yet across the sport, others don’t have such a rosy outlook for the Buffs. What ailed the team — dreadful play along the offensive and defensive line, a lack of depth across the roster — is not easily fixed, and there are expected to be key departures from Sanders’ coaching staff.

The Athletic spoke with six coordinators and assistant coaches within the Pac-12 Conference, all of whom were granted anonymity to speak candidly about an opposing program. Their assessment of Year 1 of…