Colorado walked into Friday night with its season hanging by a thread and walked out with one of the biggest wins in the Deion Sanders era. Down 13 late in the second quarter against No. 14 Houston, the Buffaloes ripped off 28 straight points and turned Folsom Field into a celebration, stunning the Cougars 42-32 and keeping their bowl hopes alive.
It was Colorado’s first win over an AP top-15 team since Sept. 29, 2007, when it beat No. 3 Oklahoma on a last-second field goal.
The Buffaloes were a 23-point underdog that day, too, and had lost 35 straight games against top-15 opponents since. On Friday, the drought finally ended.
“It was balance,” Sanders said. “We all caught the same bus.
The offense showed up. The defense showed up.
Special teams showed up. We all were here.
Usually, somebody gets left. They get the wrong time on the itinerary.”
The win mattered in the standings, but it also mattered for the mood around the program. Colorado entered the night at 4-6 overall and 2-5 in the Big 12, and it had dropped six of seven before taking down Houston. Sanders has faced questions about his future during that stretch, though he said Tuesday he wasn’t worried about the noise.
“Man, I don’t think about that, man,” he said. “I’m not here for my job, I’m here for these young men.
I’m not built like that. I’m really not.
I’m really, really, really not. I want these kids to graduate, to provoke change in their communities (and) in their lives and their families.
I ain’t worried about me. I’m good, my brother.
I’m not worried about me. I worry about others.
That’s who I’m called to be.”
Colorado still has work to do if it wants to reach a bowl for the second time under Sanders. It needs to win at Cincinnati and then beat UCF at home. The Buffaloes are also trying to get back to the postseason for the first time since their 2004 Houston Bowl win over UTEP, and they remain 0-5 in bowl games since then.
Sanders made it clear he wasn’t interested in framing Friday as anything bigger than a win.
“We want to win, period. I don’t spend one minute, period, saying, ‘This is a top 15 team.’
I don’t really care about that,” Sanders said. “I want to win.”
Houston’s loss knocked it out of the Big 12 race and dealt a serious blow to its College Football Playoff chances. The Cougars came in tied for third in the league and had been given a 21 percent shot at the 12-team field by The Athletic’s projections. After Friday, that number dropped to three percent.
“I told them all they can point the finger at me if they want because we can point the finger all over the place. There’s a lot of guys who did not play very well; a lot of us did not coach very well,” Willie Fritz said. “It was a team loss.”
For Colorado, the night was defined by big plays and a running game that showed up in a way it hadn’t all season. The Buffaloes didn’t reach the red zone until late in the third quarter, but their first four touchdowns came from 38, 67, 32 and 53 yards out. Four different players scored rushing touchdowns, and Colorado piled up 249 yards on the ground, its most since 2021.
“We’ve been waiting on that,” Sanders said of the Buffaloes’ sudden explosiveness. “We’ve been looking for that.”
The offense kept finding answers even after quarterback Isaac Wilson left in the third quarter with a leg injury. Freshman Kaneal Sweetwyne broke loose for a 14-yard touchdown to push Colorado ahead 35-20, and Wilson later returned, though his mobility was limited.
Colorado entered the night ranked 108th in scoring and had not scored 30 points against an FBS team this season. Friday changed that.
It was the first time the Buffaloes had reached 30 against a Power 4 opponent since a 52-0 win over Oklahoma State to close the 2024 regular season, when Shedeur Sanders was at quarterback and Travis Hunter was taking home the Heisman Trophy. That 2024 team scored 30 points in all seven of its Big 12 wins.
“These kids are resilient,” Sanders said. “They have not stopped.
They have not quit. They have not given up, as well as the coaching staff.
I’m really a proud guy right now.”
In Other News...
Houston Fans Wont Like What Deion Sanders Emphasized After This Loss
Houstons unbeaten momentum took a hit when Colorado stormed back from a 20-7 deficit to beat the No. 14 Cougars 42-26, a result that left plenty of frustration behind for a team that had been in control early. The loss stings on its own, but it also came against a Buffaloes group that has spent much of the season trying to find its footing and still managed to turn the game around with a composed second half.
Deion Sanders made sure to spotlight exactly that afterward, praising Colorados resilience and the balance it showed in the win. For Houston fans, that kind of postgame emphasis only adds to the annoyance, because it frames the Cougars not just as a team that got upset, but as one that let a winnable game slip away to a squad still chasing the two victories it needs to stay bowl-eligible. [Read more 🡒]
Houston Playoff Hopes Crashed In A Loss Cougars Fans Must Process
Houstons playoff path came to a hard stop in Boulder, where the No. 14 Cougars fell 42-32 to Colorado in a game that swung sharply after halftime. Houston had the kind of lead that can travel well in November, but Colorado kept landing explosive plays and turned the afternoon into a track meet the Cougars could not control.
The loss ended Houstons playoff hopes and left the Cougars to absorb a result built on momentum shifts and long touchdowns. Colorado, meanwhile, celebrated its first double-digit victory of the season with a field storm from the home crowd, a fitting finish to a game that kept changing shape until the final minutes. [Read more 🡒]
Houston Let Colorado's QB Scare Turn Into Something Worse
Isaac Wilson briefly left Saturdays game in the third quarter, and for a moment it looked like Houston might have caught a break against Colorados offense. Instead, the Buffaloes kept rolling, with true freshman Kaneal Sweetwyne stepping in and immediately making an impact by scoring a touchdown on his first carry before Wilson returned early in the fourth quarter.
For Houston, the bigger concern was not just the upset loss to No. 14 Colorado, but the way a short injury scare turned into another layer of trouble in a 42-32 defeat. Colorados win pushed the Buffaloes closer to bowl eligibility, while the Cougars were left to sort through another frustrating outcome in a game where the momentum never fully swung back their way. [Read more 🡒]