Julian Lewis was handed a tough assignment from the jump.
By the time Colorado reached its bye week after three straight uninspiring losses, the freshman quarterback had gone from potential savior to a possible third-string afterthought. The Buffaloes’ problems run much deeper than one player, but the quarterback spot always gets the microscope, and five games in, it’s clear Lewis is a poor match for CU’s Go-Go offense.
Deion Sanders deserves credit for trying to reset the program’s direction. Hiring Brennan Marion as offensive coordinator was a real departure from the old setup, especially with Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter not returning. The Go-Go offense brought a tougher, run-first identity and showed a willingness to adapt.
The move to keep Lewis also made sense on paper. Sanders opened the revenue sharing checkbook to retain him, and starting over at quarterback is rarely ideal for a coach trying to prove last year’s 3-9 finish was a one-off.
But the fit has been wrong from the start. That isn’t on Lewis, who turned 19 just two weeks ago. The bigger issue is that Sanders should have found a quarterback in the transfer portal better suited to what Marion wants to do.
The mismatch shows up in two obvious ways.
Lewis said at Big 12 media days in July that he wasn’t asked to make many complicated reads last season, hoping he could simply go play. The Go-Go asks for much more than that. It often demands a quarterback who can process multiple decisions in a hurry, and Lewis has been forced into a system that asks for choreography instead of a clean slate.
The other issue is mobility, or the lack of it. Marion’s offenses have usually worked best with quarterbacks who can threaten defenses with their legs, and that hasn’t been the case with Lewis or his replacement, Isaac Wilson.
The track record backs that up. Sacramento State quarterback Cardell Williams ran for 378 yards last year, averaging 31.5 per game.
At UNLV the year before, Hajj-Malik Williams rushed for 851 yards and nine touchdowns. Earlier stops tell the same story: Hollis Mathis rushed for 546 yards at William & Mary in 2019, and Caylin Newton ran for 555 yards at Howard in 2018.
Those aren’t college football legends, but they do show the kind of quarterback Marion has leaned on. Lewis and Wilson just don’t give Colorado that element.
Lewis finished with minus-45 rushing yards in four games before being benched, sack totals included. Wilson hasn’t offered much more. He had 47 rushing yards on 61 attempts in nine games as Utah’s starter two years ago after Cameron Rising got hurt, and even with a 48-yard long run in that mix, the number still tells the story.
Still, Wilson wound up leading Colorado with 17 rushing attempts in his first start for the Buffs and finished with 42 yards. CU’s running backs combined for just 14 attempts in a game Texas Tech led only 12-7 entering the fourth quarter.
Not every one of Wilson’s carries was designed, but that only makes the overall picture worse. Colorado has running backs who have been hyped and, at times, have flashed. There is no reason the quarterback should be leading the team in rushing attempts.
And that’s only part of the Buffaloes’ mess.
Sanders’ decision not to hire a special teams coordinator has already cost Colorado in obvious ways, from punts not being fair caught and rolling inside the 5-yard line to long returns that hurt the Buffs. Then came the ugly sequence against Texas Tech, when CU burned a timeout because it didn’t have enough players on the field for the field goal block unit, then came back out with nine players after the timeout.
The discipline Sanders promised still hasn’t shown up. Three players were dismissed after the 41-7 loss at Northwestern. Colorado is the most penalized team in the Big 12 and entered the weekend ranked 130th out of 138 FBS teams with 82.6 penalty yards per game.
Even in the best case, this was never going to be a perfect team. Some of those flaws might have been hidden if the offense had functioned. Instead, Sanders tried to plug a big-armed quarterback into a system that doesn’t suit him, and Colorado entered the season in a bad spot before it even took a snap.
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Colorado Let A Big Chance Slip In Costly Four Set Loss
Colorados trip to Desert Financial Arena started with promise, as the No. 23 Buffaloes took the opening set from No. 11 Arizona State and looked ready to put a statement win on the board. Instead, the Sun Devils settled in and Colorado wound up dropping the next three sets, leaving the Buffs with a 10-4 record and a 2-3 mark in conference play after a match that felt very much there for the taking.
There were still individual bright spots for Colorado in the loss, with Peyton Neal reaching a career milestone on the defensive side and Jenna Ylivainio turning in another busy night at the net. Ylivainios production gave the Buffs some resistance as the match wore on, but the bigger concern is the one Colorado keeps trying to solve in league play: how to turn a good start into a full four-set performance against one of the conferences better teams. [Read more 🡒]
No. 24 Colorado Puts Its Home Streak On The Line Against Kansas
Colorados 3-0 win over Baylor did more than keep the Buffs rolling. It pushed the No. 24 team into the program record book with a new mark for consecutive home wins, and it also preserved a perfect 8-0 home record heading into an Oct. 11 visit from Kansas. The Buffs have been especially tough to break down in Boulder, stacking up eight shutouts already, with freshman goalkeeper Brooke Goerish collecting her fifth solo shutout in the process.
Kansas arrives with plenty of momentum of its own, having posted three shutout wins in its last four games and leaning on midfielder Jillian Gregorski to drive the attack. For Colorado, the challenge is as much about maintaining the standard it has built at home as it is about handling a Jayhawks side that has recently made life difficult for opponents. The matchup has all the ingredients of a test between a team protecting a streak and another trying to spoil it. [Read more 🡒]
Colorados Bye Week Could Expose Problems Deion Sanders Must Fix
With Colorado on a bye, Deion Sanders gets a rare chance to step back and study the road ahead instead of worrying about the next snap. The Buffaloes are expected to keep a close eye on Utah, Oklahoma State and Kansas State, using the week off to gather a better feel for the opponents waiting in the weeks ahead. It is the kind of pause that can be valuable for a team still sorting out its own identity on both sides of the ball.
What makes this stretch especially useful is that each of those upcoming opponents offers a different kind of test, from offensive tempo to defensive pressure to the little details that can swing a game plan. Colorados staff is looking for clues on where the Buffaloes need to tighten things up, particularly in how they handle matchups on offense and contain them on defense. The bye week may be quiet on the schedule, but for Sanders it is also a chance to spot the problems that will matter most once play resumes. [Read more 🡒]