BOULDER — Deion Sanders promised CU the moon. Buffs fans will happily settle for a sip of some stars first.
Three wins? Eight wins? Four? Five? What’s a fair bar for Coach Prime’s Year 1?
Six feels about right. Mel Tucker won five games during his debut campaign in 2019, then chased the Big Ten bucks before he could truly enjoy the fruits of his labor.
Karl Dorrell went 4-2 with Mel’s guys the next fall, before the best of Mel’s guys piled onto the life rafts.
The last time the Buffs scraped rock bottom was Jon Embree’s 1-11 stinker in 2012. Mike MacIntyre parachuted in and promptly went 4-8 the next season. Mind you, three of those wins came against CSU, Central Arkansas and Charleston Southern.
Then again, MacIntyre didn’t walk in with Travis Hunter. Or Shedeur Sanders. Or the No. 1 transfer haul in the country. Or any Louis Vuitton luggage. That we know of.
“We’re here to win,” Tim Brewster, the former Broncos assistant and the Buffs’ fairly intense new tight ends coach, told us a few weeks back. “I’m here to win. Coach Prime is here to win. We’re here to win now. It’s not a rebuilding process. This is a process that we are attacking on a daily basis (in) trying to make this program great again.”
Rick Neuheisel won 10 games in his debut CU season in 1995. Gary Barnett opened his account with seven wins in 1999, but that was a long time ago and a galaxy far, far away. By then, Bill McCartney had turned Boulder into a boulder that picked up speed as it rolled downhill.
The experience for first-time coaches with the Buffs has been closer to Sisyphus in the decades since. Dan Hawkins (2-10), Embree (3-10) and MacIntyre (4-8) got out of the starting gate with three wins, on average.
“We need every box checked,” Sanders said late last month. “(I’ve) got to see how the coaches communicate with players. (I’ve) got to see how the players communicate with the coaches. The strength and conditioning, the training staff, the equipment staff — we’re checking everything because this is a total commitment of unification to win. It’s not just us on the field.”
While the Xs and Os remain to be seen, the Buffs are already turning heads when it comes to Jimmies and Joes. 247Sports.com’s database ranks CU’s transfer class, Deion’s Louis Luggage, as the No. 1 portal haul in the country for the ’22-23 offseason.
Why that’s significant: USC was No. 1 a year ago, on the heels of hiring a hot coach after a soul-crushing campaign (4-8) and an in-season jettison of a coach (Clay Helton) who’d divided the fan base.
Sound familiar?
The Trojans notched 11 wins in 2022, a one-year improvement of seven games.
So, let’s see: One plus seven is …eight victories.
A bridge too far? Perhaps. But talent talks, and the top five teams in 247Sports’ Transfer Rankings for the 2021-22 offseason all had one thing in common: They won.
All five reached the postseason. And the three of those five who also added new head coaches to the mix — USC (11 wins), LSU (10 wins) and Oklahoma (six wins) — posted an aggregate record of 27-14 (.659).
Winning 65.9% of 12 games is … eight victories.
Reality check? The dance card.
CollegeFootballNews.com declared CU’s schedule the second-toughest in the nation, behind only Purdue and just ahead of Cal. FanDuel set the over-under for CU wins at 4.5, largely because September is hellacious: At defending national runner-up TCU on Sept. 2; home to Nebraska on Sept. 9; home to CSU on Sept. 16; at Oregon on Sept. 3; vs. USC on Sept. 30.
Where have you gone, Central Arkansas?
The Huskers figure to improve, and swiftly, under first-year coach Matt Rhule. The same should be said of the Rams under Jay Norvell in Year 2. A packed, rocking Folsom Field probably gives the Buffs an edge in both matchups.
It’s the other three games where things get sticky. TCU (13-2), Oregon (10-3) and USC (11-3) were a combined 34-8 last fall, and two of those early tests are on the road. Although CU could be 2-3 after five weeks and still be in pretty good shape for the October stretch run.
“Everybody in this darn building (has) got to understand that we are winners,” Sanders stressed. “It has to change, it has to be provoked, and that’s why we’re here. But we’re trying to check every darn box. If it was great, I wouldn’t be here.”
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