TEMPE, Ariz. — Shedeur Sanders has been sacked more times than a gallon of milk. His favorite target, Travis Hunter, hasn’t played in 14 quarters and two overtime periods.
Yet over his first six weeks on the job, Son of Prime’s also notched four one-score victories as CU’s starting quarterback.
Frame of reference: The Buffs won five one-score games, combined, over their prior 30 tilts, a bridge to nowhere that stretches all the way back to November 2020.
He’s Elway Lite. Isn’t he?
Well, maybe Reeves Era Elway Lite. Sanders The Younger is accurate and arrogant, cool and clutch to the last, the sizzle and the steak. Without him, the Buffs are 1-5 right now, a paper tiger of empty slogans and false promises.
And y’ all are freaking out about a …. watch?
That’s Forked Up.
Look, Shedeur was just reminding all those Arizona State undergrads whose time it was.
His.
“(I) was really just taking accountability of what’s going on in the game,” Shedeur said of a lonely, third-quarter stretch he spent stewing at the very end of the CU bench, head tucked in a towel, before steering the Buffs to a 27-24 win.
“You know, I’m holding the ball a little bit too long, not really going through everything, not basically playing perfect. So that’s how it was. And then I’m on the side and I’m frustrated.
“And it’s like — it’s time, you know? It’s time to do whatever it takes to win, and by any means you could take matters in your own hands.”
Which he did. Second-half line: a touchdown and 123 passing yards on 12 completions, including a 43-yard rainbow to Javon Antonio that set up the Alejandro Mata’s game-winning field goal with 12 seconds left. Son of Prime’s season second-half numbers (plus OT), if you’re curious: a 75.2% completion rate, 12 touchdowns, zero picks, 194.38 passer rating.
And y’all are anonymously accusing him of … playing to jazz up his box score?
“I think they want to rack up some stats for Shedeur,” an unnamed Pac-12 assistant coach told The Athletic in the days leading up to the Buffs’ first Pac-12 victory of the season (1-2) and fourth victory (4-2) overall.
“(Sanders) really holds on to the ball a long time. I think he takes sacks because he doesn’t want to affect his completion percentage. He’s playing a little different than he did earlier in the season. Before he showed that he was willing to step up and escape through the B-gaps. Now, he’s retreating more.”
Funny. The guy taking sacks (air quotes) on purpose (ends air quotes) ran six times on his own for 31 yards at Mountain America Stadium. On at least one of those jaunts, instead of sliding like a sane person, the 6-foot-2, 215-pound Sanders, no battering ram, lowered his shoulder and ran over a Sun Devils defender.
Pro tip: Quarterbacks known for making business decisions — see Bridgewater, Teddy — generally prefer not to throw their bodies around like crash test dummies.
“We really just had to activate that dawg, that fire, to show everybody, hey, look,” explained Sanders, who completed 26 balls on 42 attempts for CU, which wraps up the first half of the season by hosting Stanford (1-4, 0-3 Pac-12) Friday night at Folsom Field.
“(To show) those guys that (we) could get out there and just do whatever we want to do. So that was really the thing. It really is just like a ‘scare’ tactic.”
Want to know what’s even scarier? The Buffs just cleared their consensus preseason over-under on victories for the season (3.5) with six games yet to play.
Hunter, resting a lacerated liver, is on the mend. And Coach Prime was spitting fire after the tlit, miffed at yet another slow CU start, more schizophrenic special teams, and a 24-17 lead coughed up by a chewed-up, Hunter-less defense.
“We have the talent, man,” Deion Sanders groused. “We have some talented young men. We have some talented people inside this locker room. We just (have) got to put it all together.
“And I’m sorry with my impatience. I don’t have patience for too much in life. You ask my kids.”
The kids?
The kids are all right, Prime.
More than all right, actually.
“I’ve been living with (Deion) my whole life,” Shedeur Sanders recounted with a grin. “He can’t tell me anything I haven’t heard before.
“I just looked down the sideline, just seeing everybody’s body language, the coaches and everybody. And they knew. They knew what time it was.”
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