Some teams spiral. Colorado keeps replaying the same tape.
Saturday night in Stillwater was the latest ugly loop. The Buffaloes carried a 24-23 lead into halftime against Oklahoma State, then got buried when the Cowboys ripped off the final 34 points in a 57-24 blowout. It was Colorado’s fifth straight loss, dropping the Buffs to 2-5 overall and 0-4 in the Big 12, alone at the bottom of the league.
And this isn’t just about one bad night. The slide has been rolling for a long time.
Colorado has now lost nine straight Big 12 games, dating back to a 24-17 win over No. 22 Iowa State at Folsom Field on Oct.
11, 2025. The first loss in that run came at Utah on Oct. 25, 2025, which meant the streak hit its one-year mark Sunday.
Over its last 12 games, Colorado is 2-10.
A lot of those losses were never close. Six of the 10 came by at least 20 points, including 53-7 at Utah, 52-17 against Arizona, 42-17 against Arizona State, 41-7 at Northwestern, 29-7 at Texas Tech and Saturday’s 57-24 defeat.
Only two were single-digit losses. The 57 points Oklahoma State put up were the most Colorado has allowed in Deion Sanders’ four seasons, and no Big 12 team has scored more on an FBS opponent this year.
The Buffaloes have also made a habit of shooting themselves in the foot. Colorado led the Big 12 with 100 penalties in 2024, and the problem has carried over.
It was flagged 11 times in Stillwater, with eight of those penalties coming after halftime. Through seven games, the Buffs already have 66 penalties, again the most in the conference.
Last season, it took 12 games to reach 68.
The offensive and defensive numbers aren’t telling a much better story. Colorado is averaging 20.1 points per game, last in the Big 12, while allowing 30.1, second-most in the league.
Last season, the Buffs scored 20.9 per game and gave up 30.5. Swap the year on the stat sheet, and the picture barely changes.
This season was supposed to look different after Colorado handed Sanders a five-year, $54 million extension in March 2025 that runs through 2029 and pays him $10 million in base and supplemental salary this season. Former athletic director Rick George said then that the deal would keep Sanders in Boulder “to compete for conference and national championships in the years to come.” Since then, Colorado is 5-14.
The strangest part of all this is how the Buffaloes keep arriving at the same place through different paths. Against Utah, they were blanked in the first half and scored 24 after the break.
In Stillwater, they did the opposite, piling up 24 in the first half and getting shut out the rest of the way. Linebacker Gideon Lampron said the team is still “striving to put one together.”
Sanders, asked what it will take to keep the group moving, didn’t go into the playbook. “They’ve got to want it for the university, and they’ve got to want it for themselves,” he said.
He also made it clear how he views the current moment. Because “we’re compensating people to play this game,” Sanders said, the players need to give everything they have. He said the message in the program has shifted from preparing players for the next level to helping each one become “the best college football player that you could possibly be.”
He didn’t pin Saturday’s loss on any one player. “We’re not blaming nobody, man,” Sanders said. “That’s a team effort and defeat.”
Receiver Joseph Williams said he couldn’t explain why this year’s slide feels different but ends the same way. Everybody is giving their best, he said, but “we ain’t putting it together right now.”
Lampron described last week as “an incredible week of practice,” and said he has no doubt this team will keep battling: “Without a doubt, we’re going to respond.”
That response has to come fast. Colorado needs four wins in its final five games to reach six and get to December, and every remaining opponent has a winning record: Kansas State (4-3), Arizona State (4-3), Houston (6-2), Cincinnati (5-2) and UCF (4-3).
First up is Kansas State, which comes to Folsom Field at noon Saturday on TNT. The Wildcats are coming off a 28-17 loss at Arizona State that dropped them to 1-3 in the Big 12, but they’ve beaten Colorado in each of the last two meetings, 31-28 in Boulder in 2024 and 24-14 in Manhattan in last year’s finale.
Kansas State was the Big 12’s least penalized team last season and is again this year. Through seven games apiece, the Wildcats have been flagged 27 times, 39 fewer than Colorado.
Lampron still isn’t buying the idea that this season is just a rerun of the last one. “It’s going to turn around eventually for us,” he said.
In Other News...
Kansas State Heads To Boulder With Less Margin Than Fans Expected
The early read on Kansas States trip to Boulder suggests a tighter matchup than some around the Big 12 might have expected, with Colorado getting the benefit of playing at home and the game drawing attention for how evenly matched the two sides look on paper. For Buffaloes fans, that makes this one feel less like a simple measuring-stick game and more like a chance to see whether home-field advantage can help tilt things in their direction.
What makes the opener especially interesting is how much of the conversation comes back to execution. Both teams have enough offensive talent to make this one uncomfortable for the other side, and the betting market is already signaling that small details could matter more than reputations. The number attached to the game leaves plenty of room for movement, but for now it sets up a conference matchup that should carry real stakes from the opening kick. [Read more 🡒]
Colorado Faces A Kansas State Problem That Just Got Harder To Read
Kansas States quarterback picture is still unsettled heading into its meeting with Colorado, and that alone makes the matchup harder to sort out. Avery Johnson has been working through an injury, and coach Collin Klein said the Wildcats are continuing to monitor his recovery while also keeping tabs on the rest of the room.
The uncertainty does not stop with Johnson. Blake Barnett and Jacob Knuth are both part of the conversation, and Kleins latest update offered no easy read on who will take the first snap against the Buffaloes. For Colorado, the scouting report may end up coming down less to a name on the depth chart than to which version of Kansas State actually shows up. [Read more 🡒]
Colorado Just Made Deion Sanders Biggest Problem Even Harder To Ignore
The Buffaloes trip to Oklahoma State turned into another rough checkpoint in a season that has kept slipping further away, with Colorado falling 57-24 and piling up its fifth straight loss. It was the most points the program has allowed under Deion Sanders, a reminder that the defensive problems have not just lingered, but widened as the year has gone on.
Isaac Wilsons stretch at quarterback has not offered much relief either, as turnovers have become part of the story and the offense has struggled to steady itself. With Sanders still on the sideline and a few games left to reshape the conversation, the pressure is only going to build, especially as other programs around college football have already made coaching moves. [Read more 🡒]