EUGENE, Ore. — If a cat’s got nine lives, Shedeur Sanders, charming and charmed, has at least 18 to spare. Good thing, given that the Pac-12’s collecting with interest this fall.
“If he’s going to continue to play at a high level, one of the things he needs to do, and he started to do it against CSU, is taking off and running,” Jesse Palmer, the former Florida QB and current ESPN analyst, told me over the phone a few days back.
“He’s not the most dynamic runner at the quarterback position in the country. But if you can get four or five yards, limit the distance on third down, protect yourself and get out of bounds, I think that’ll be a key thing for (the Oregon) game Saturday and that’s a big key for him this season.”
The Ducks’ defensive line outweighs CSU’s by an average of 22 pounds per dude. Shedeur does Tom Brady better than Tom Brady does Tom Brady these days. But to get out of Autzen Stadium in one piece, you ask Palmer, isn’t he going to need to flash at least a little Lamar Jackson, too?
“I’m not saying he needs to be Lamar Jackson and run all the time,” Palmer, who’ll work the CU-Oregon game on Saturday for ESPN along with Joe Tessitore and Katie George, said while on a break from “The Bachelor” duties. “His gut instinct is to scramble in the pocket to extend time for his throws. But when he can, if he can get four or five yards (on escapes), it’ll help this offense a lot.”
After three games, two against Power 5 defenses, you could describe Son of Prime in the same hushed, pious tones normally reserved for Nikola Jokic and Cale Makar. One of one. Freak. Unique. Always three chess moves ahead.
Shedeur’s counting statistics coming out of the non-conference dance card — 10 touchdown passes, one interception, an Xbox-esque 78.7% completion rate — are exquisite enough. But it’s the numbers underneath that’ll melt your cerebellum like caramel sauce.
On third down, the younger Sanders has completed 71.9% of his throws with a 177.95 passer rating. On third-and-10-or-more, he’s 12 of 14 (85.7%). On fourth down, 2 for 2. He’s 22 for 26 in the fourth quarter (84.6%) with three touchdowns, zero interceptions and a 253.22 rating. The tighter you squeeze him, the greater the payoff. The Rammies pinned him to the CU 2 with 2:06 left, up eight at Folsom Field, with no Travis Hunter, and dared him to go Full Elway. Seven plays and no third downs later, the kid had a Drive of his own on the highlight reel.
“The guy keeps getting hit and he stays in the pocket, he keeps his eyes downfield and he plays his best football in the most critical points in the game,” Palmer said, voice rising in admiration. “There are so many quarterbacks, they get hit, the eyes come down, they get flustered, they make bad decisions. Not him.”
That said, he is getting hit. A lot. Among FBS programs, only Old Dominion is allowing more sacks per game than the Buffs’ 5.33. Whenever the hurricanes come, Shedeur is almost always the eye of the storm, forever cool, buying time, dissecting his way out of disaster.
“There’s not a lot of first-round picks in front of him,” Palmer said of the CU offensive line. “And part of that, really, is maybe the most impressive thing about him — the fact that he’s unflappable.”
Mind you, some Rams players also didn’t appreciate the way the younger Sanders talked trash before the Showdown. Even if he backed it up to the last.
“I think there’s a target on every great player’s back, isn’t (there), last time I checked,” Shedeur’s dad, CU coach Deion Sanders, replied when I asked about the protection for his (sometimes) favorite son.
“But that should really challenge your offensive line to do their jobs, shouldn’t it? Because if you stop the quarterback, if you stop a Travis Hunter, if you stop a Xavier (Weaver), a Jimmy (Horn Jr.), if you stop these guys, you’re stopping the offense.”
Although you also can’t shake the image of 6-foot-1 Mo Kamara, CSU’s Little Engine That Could, turnstiling CU’s 6-10 tackle, Gerad Christian-Lichtenhan, crawling on all fours, then grabbing the younger Sanders for an ankle sack.
Starting Saturday, and for most of the next nine weeks, the first-round picks lined up in front of Sanders are going to be wearing the wrong color of jersey. And looking to roll him into a black-and-gold burrito.
“I’ve got to be honest, when you’re the QB, it’s not like you have to say things and all of a sudden the defense wants to hit you harder,” Palmer laughed. “At the end of the night, they’re still going to be hitting him, whether you’re out there flashing watches or talking about Rolls Royces or not. College kids don’t need a lot of bulletin-board material to want to play hard.”
