A 19-point victory and avoiding any major injuries wasn’t enough for Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes on Saturday.
At the end of a 28-9 win over Colorado State, Colorado had the chance to take a knee and end the game after picking up a first down with less than two minutes to go. But that’s not the route they took.
Instead, Colorado ran several offensive plays and took several deep passes in an attempt to score another touchdown and make the score even more lopsided. This effort culminated in a fourth-down play where quarterback and the Sanders’ son Shedeur Sanders dropped back and threw a pass for a one-yard loss while also taking a hit from a 300-pound defensive Colorado State lineman. They weren’t even willing to settle for a field goal.
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Head coach Deion Sanders of the Colorado Buffaloes walks off the field after the game against the Colorado State Rams at Canvas Stadium on Sept. 14, 2024, in Fort Collins. (Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We want to score,” Deion said in the postgame press conference when asked about the final drive. “The game is about scoring, ain’t it? I don’t know protocol. You should called me and told me when to pull off. As long as the other team is trying to score, we’re trying to score. That’s my rule.”
Shedeur suffered a fractured back at the end of last season after being sacked a total of 52 times in his first season at Colorado. Saturday’s decision to stay in at the end was a stark reversal from last week for Shedeur, who left Colorado’s 28-10 loss to Nebraska after taking a hit to the head, spending the final minutes in the locker room.
The Buffaloes’ decision on Saturday to potentially put their players in harm’s way in pursuit of another touchdown also came against the same opponent in which two-star Travis Hunter suffered a lacerated liver on an illegal hit and had to be taken to the hospital last year during Colorado’s 43-35 double overtime win.
The attempt to run up the score also came the same week in which Colorado State players made it a point to talk some trash about Sanders’ program in the days leading up to the game.
Colorado State’s Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi and Tory Horton gave Sanders and company plenty of bulletin board material after boasting in an interview with CBS earlier this week.
“We should have murdered them guys,” Horton said in the interview. “We’re coming for revenge.”
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Fowler-Nicolosi gloated about how close Colorado State kept last season’s game despite being heavy underdogs, then mocked Colorado for how much media attention it gets.
“They got a rude, rude awakening. I think it goes to show that the hype, the media train, it only takes you so far,” Fowler-Nicolosi said. “We’ll see how far Instagram followers gets them.”
Sanders wasted no time calling out the Colorado State players for their trash talk after the game. He even alleged one of the Rams players elbowed a Buffaloes coach.
Tawfiq Thomas of the Colorado Buffaloes carries the Centennial Cup after defeating the Colorado State Rams on Sept. 14, 2024. (Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“The disrespect was uncalled for throughout the week,” Sanders said. “A couple of their players took shots at the whole program and a few of our players. So, it is what it is. We knew that coming into the game it was going to be a bit personal and it was. One of our coaches, coach Phillips, during warmups… one of the guys ran into him and elbowed him, which is uncalled for. I just pray that our kids never act in that manner. Because I know you guys would have a field day if they did.”
Colorado is not the first team to try and run up the score in the final moments against an opponent this year.
Colorado head coach Deion Sanders speaks during the Big 12 NCAA college football media days in Las Vegas, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Lucas Peltier)
In Rutgers’ blowout against Howard on Aug. 30, Scarlet Knights head coach Greg Schiano had his team run an offensive play instead of taking a knee with a 38-7 lead. Instead, they scored another touchdown to win 44-7. Schiano echoed a similar sentiment to Sanders after that game about wanting to run plays, even in meaningless moments of the game.
“Guys practiced all training camp. They deserve to play,” Schiano said. “There was no running it up. If it was running it up, you don’t use timeouts when you have the ball. You let the game end. That wasn’t retaliatory. We were going to run plays. We bring a team in here to play us. We bring them here. We bring them in, we’ve got to win, and we’ve got to get reps. And they were there, we took them.”
Colorado’s attempt to punish their cross-state rival with another score at the end of Saturday’s game didn’t cost it any serious injuries.
Now, as a newcomer to the Big 12, Colorado will get its first conference matchup of the season when it takes on Baylor next week.
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Jackson Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital. He previously worked for ESPN and Business Insider. Jackson has covered the Super Bowl and NBA Finals, and has interviewed iconic figures Usain Bolt, Rob Gronkowski, Jerry Rice, Troy Aikman, Mike Trout, David Ortiz and Roger Clemens.
