Colorado's loss to Kansas brought up an interesting debate between head coach Deion Sanders and his son, quarterback Shedeur Sanders, about what went wrong.
After the Buffaloes' 37-21 defeat, Coach Prime didn’t hold back, attributing the team’s struggles to overconfidence.
“We started smelling ourselves a little bit,” Deion said via Athlon Sports. “We got intoxicated with the success, the multitude of articles, and the assumption that we’re this or that. And we did not play CU football. Therefore, we got our butts kicked.”
Deion Sanders has been candid when asked about losses in press conferences in both of his seasons as the head coach of Colorado, so it's not surprising that he didn't hold back this time either.
However, Shedeur saw things differently from his dad's analysis.
“Personally, I’m just an overconfident person myself,” he admitted when asked about his dad’s comments. “So I can’t spot that on anybody else and say they’re overconfident. I’m not sure. We all did our job preparing, so whatever people did in their personal side, like mentally, you won’t be able to know.”
The quarterback made it clear that he wasn’t entirely sold on overconfidence being the root cause of the loss.
“I’m focused on plenty of other things than how somebody is thinking at all times,” Shedeur added.
Regardless of the reason, the loss has put Colorado in a tight spot. They’ve dropped to a four-way tie in Big 12 standings, needing both a win over Oklahoma State and help from other teams to keep their championship and College Football Playoff hopes alive.
Deion is determined to keep the team’s focus sharp as the regular season finale approaches.
“You’ve got to refocus your young men and let them understand this is not about turkey and dumplings... It’s about football, man,” he said.
Colorado and Oklahoma State will kickoff at 12:00 p.m. E.T. on Friday. The game will be televised on ABC/ESPN+.