‘Scheduled To Fail’ — College Football Insider Reveals Brutal Disadvantage Facing Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes

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Colorado coach Deion Sanders is in one of the toughest spots in college football after a disappointing third season in Boulder ended with a woeful 3-9 record. The Buffaloes had seemingly turned a corner after going 9-4 in 2024, but they regressed badly after Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders departed for the NFL.

Pete Thamel Reveals Deion Sanders’ Colorado Concern

During last week’s segment of the “College GameDay podcast,” college football insider Pete Thamel lamented the Buffs’ brutal non-conference games against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and the Northwestern Wildcats next season.

“I would guess that Colorado is the only power conference team that’s going to play two Power Four road games in the non-conference this year,” Thamel said. “They go to Georgia Tech, and then they go to Northwestern. In theory, those are coin-flip games, right? But, you know, if you play Colorado School of Mines, the coin’s loaded a little bit differently. They are scheduled to fail. Rick George left them with that.

“Now, some of it’s pro-market, right? You got to get butts in the seats, all that kind of stuff. So, Colorado is always scheduled pretty aggressively. But that’s a pretty tough slog when you go to Atlanta, you have Weber State at home, come back, and then you go to Northwestern before you open up league play on the road at Baylor. And that will certainly be a game where the losing coach will very likely be under a heat lamp.”

Three of Colorado’s first four games next season will be against Power Four opponents, and all three of them are on the road. After facing the Yellow Jackets in Week 1, Sanders’ team will have a respite against the Weber State Wildcats in Boulder before facing the Baylor Bears and the reigning Big 12 champions, the Texas Tech Red Raiders, in successive weeks.

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After their punishing start to the season, the Buffs will face a Week 6 bye before embarking on a gentler schedule to end the season. Colorado has only clinched bowl eligibility once in Sanders’ tenure, and another failure to do so next season would constitute a major failure.

Sanders responded to last season’s regression by hiring Brennan Marion to replace Pat Shurmur as the Buffs’ offensive coordinator. In addition, Coach Prime promoted Chris Marve to be Colorado’s defensive coordinator after Robert Livingston joined the Denver Broncos.

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Despite the staff and roster overhaul, the Buffs’ win total has been capped at 4.5 as Coach Prime’s much-hyped tenure at Colorado enters its fourth season.

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