Strike 3: Rick George has made a lot of good decisions since taking the reins of the Colorado athletic department. Certainly the Deion Sanders coaching hire/gamble has paid off big to this point. But none of his decisions have been better than moving his school’s athletic department back to the Big 12 conference.
The Buffs were a whisker away from playing in the Big 12 title game in their first year back in the conference they helped launch back in 1997. You may have heard this before, but if conferences still had common sense and divisions, CU would have likely played Arizona State and BYU at least during the just completed regular season and perhaps earned a spot in the title game. Instead they lost out due to convoluted tiebreakers. Might as well have left the decision in the hands of a Russian judge.
As it turned out, the Buffs recorded five of their seven conference wins over five of the six worst teams in the bloated conference. The best win on the schedule came against eight-win Baylor after a successful Hail Mary at Folsom Field (or maybe it was against eight-win CSU?) Not their fault of course. You play who they put on your slate. It did help Sanders’ team fashion a nine-win season, but left them wondering what could have been if they’d gotten the chance to compete on the field against the teams that were judged to be more worthy.
What’s left is a TBD bowl game. Speculation has CU (finally) playing BYU or Iowa State in the Alamo Bowl, or perhaps Michigan in the Las Vegas Bowl. We’ll know after the conference title games. Sanders has promised that none of his star players, including his QB/son Shedeur will “opt out” of the bowl game as so many NFL prospects have done in recent years. If that holds true, it would be a feather in Sanders’ big white cowboy hat.
After the bowl game, the questions will shift to Sanders’ future at CU. He has said he’s staying. Forgive those who continue to speculate otherwise. He wouldn’t be the first to make that pledge and then bolt when offered a more lucrative contract elsewhere, especially with Shedeur and most of the Buffs big play skill guys leaving at the same time. College football’s version of the coaching carousel is just beginning, and no one knows when and where it will stop. Deion is very likely to get fat offers from bigger programs looking for an influx of transfers and attention. There will likely be interest regarding NFL gigs, potentially in Dallas or Las Vegas. And we know when money talks, Deion is all ears.
Can CU afford to potentially double Deion’s salary?
If George can work more magic, and find a way to keep his attention grabbing head coach, what happens then? Big changes are coming to college football starting next year. Rosters – most of whom number in the 150’s – are being cut back to 105. Most programs anticipate 40 or more of their current players ending up in the transfer portal. This is right up Deion’s ally of course. If he remains the head coach in 2025, the Buffs roster is likely to undergo another massive overhaul via the portal.
Not necessarily the way to build a consistent winning program, but it’s where the game is right now.
George wanted to bring attention to his program. Mission accomplished.
It’s a good thing he rejoined the Big 12 when he did.
