Deion Sanders' Colorado football team was cut by BYU. What happened?

SAN ANTONIO — Colorado head coach Deion Sanders hopped on a golf cart alongside his bodyguard and sped through a stadium tunnel on his way out of town.

He had just answered questions from reporters about what happened here Saturday night in the Alamo Bowl — a 36-14 loss to BYU in his final game coaching his two youngest sons in college.

He just didn’t want to deal with it.

“That’s it,” Sanders said. “It’s over.”

He said the loss wouldn’t overshadow the bigger trip he had in Colorado as they were already “on the way to the next one.” Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter and Sanders’ sons will look to climb the NFL ladder next season after two seasons in Colorado.

“You’re going to have a great career,” Sanders said. “They will continue. You flush it.”

But it was still quite an egg they laid at the Alamodome in front of a sellout crowd of 64,261, especially after all the talk about how emotional this game would be for Sanders. Before the game, ABC television cameras even focused on him as he completed his final pregame walk with his quarterback son, Shedeur, and his safety son, Shilo.

Then the kick-off came and – phew – their advantage was gone.

Why did it end like this for the Sanders family?

BYU (11-2) appeared far more eager than the Buffaloes (9-4), who have been known for their slow starts this season, particularly in last month’s devastating 37-21 loss to Kansas when they finished 17th :0 and never recovered.

In this case, they did it again, following the example of their live bison mascot, Ralphie, who tried to run across the field before the game, but instead just ran before making his way to the exits.

The Buffs fell into a 20-0 halftime deficit, failing to score on their first six possessions and managing just 61 yards of total offense in the first half.

Where did everything go wrong offensively?

“Everywhere,” said Shedeur Sanders, who was sacked four times and completed 16 of 23 passes for 208 yards and two touchdowns with two interceptions. “It wasn’t anything we did great tonight.”

“Same thing,” his father said.

Shedeur Sanders still hasn’t done what Cam Ward did

Regardless of what happened Saturday, Shedeur Sanders could still be the first quarterback selected in April’s NFL Draft. It’s probably him or Cam Ward, the quarterback of the Miami Hurricanes.

But both took markedly different approaches to how they handled their final college games Saturday. Sanders chose to play the game even though, despite the insurance policy he had for it, it could have cost him millions of dollars in future earnings if he were injured while playing it.

Ward decided to attend his bowl game on Saturday as well, but not after halftime. His Hurricanes led 31-28 at halftime and ultimately lost 42-41.

In contrast, Sanders played until the end of the fourth quarter, even when the game was out of reach after BYU took a 36-7 lead with 5:28 left.

Why risk it?

“We started this, so we had to finish it,” Sanders said. “No matter what it was, if it was the other way around… we would still play.”

Hunter, the two-way star, also played most of the game and finished with four catches for 106 yards and a touchdown as a receiver and four tackles on defense. Fortunately, there were no significant injuries.

“They expect us to be exciting”

In many ways, the Buffs were similar to last year’s team, when they finished 4-8 in Deion Sanders’ first season. They missed five penalties in the first half as Shedeur Sanders felt constant pressure from the BYU defense. At times they disappeared and looked nothing like the team that tied for first place in the Big 12 Conference with BYU and two other teams.

“We raised expectations,” Deion Sanders said. “So now you expect us to perform a certain way. They expect us to win. They expect us to be exciting. They expect us to be a lot more disciplined than we just played today. They just have expectations of us now. That’s what we found.”

It was still Colorado’s best season since 2016, when the Buffs finished 10-4, even after a stunning loss in the Alamo Bowl. But it will be difficult for Colorado to live up to those expectations after losing Hunter and Shedeur Sanders.

“It felt great to represent Colorado and bring it back to where it was in the past,” Shedeur Sanders said. “We have laid the foundation for the program so that the other incoming players can now pick up where we left off.”

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: [email protected]

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Deion Sanders’ Colorado football team was cut by BYU. What happened?

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