The following is part of a 10-part series, wherein I (Connor O’Gara) outline 10 chaos scenarios for the 2024 college football season. These are not predictions. These are, however, things that could happen that would create a significant ripple effect in the sport.
What is chaos, you ask? Last year, Texas beating Alabama caused chaos because it was the preamble for Texas’ return to the national spotlight while the Tide had “sky is falling” energy that prompted a QB change and a discussion about Nick Saban’s future. Saban’s retirement was also chaos because it prompted 4 FBS coaching vacancies, as well as raises for coaches who were reportedly targeted as his successor.
Chaos can come in non-Saban ways, too. Florida State getting left out of the Playoff as a 13-0 Power 5 champion was chaos, as was Deion Sanders beating defending national title runner-up TCU in his Colorado debut. Chaos can come in a variety of forms.
So far, we did:
- No. 1 — What if Ohio State fires Ryan Day?
- No. 2 — The chaotic teams that can win a title
- No. 3 — What if Lincoln Riley actually has a defense?
- No. 4 — A team with multiple losses wins the national title
- No. 5 — A Group of 5 team wins a Playoff game
- No. 6 — What if Quinn Ewers gets hurt again?
- No. 7 — What if Billy Napier gets fired?
- No. 8 — Traditional powers are “back” after a breakthrough victory
Today is the ninth installment of the 10-part series for 2024 …
Like him or not, Deion Sanders is chaos.
The guy has been chaos in football for the better part of 3 decades. His presence at Colorado only magnified that. We saw that last year when both of the premier pregame shows went to Colorado for a Week 3 game against … Colorado State.
Sure, part of that was because Sanders is Coach Prime. Not everyone is getting The Rock to show up to College GameDay and rep his team in mid-September of his first season. That list might just be Sanders.
But at the same time, Sanders earned that chaos because his team stunned national runners-up TCU and then it smoked Nebraska. The Buffs opened themselves up to national conversations in September, but not so much in November. Why? When you close the season by going 1-8, we tend to focus our attention on other things. Heisman Trophy races unfold, Playoff hunts are in full swing, coaches get fired, etc.
In 2024, the new has worn off Colorado. The most likely path to chaos is getting to the postseason.
Yeah, that’s a low bar for this series. I get that. I also get that Colorado has 1 7-win season since Gary Barnett was forced out in 2005. Even Vanderbilt won 7 games 3 times in that stretch. Sanders inherited a program with 1 AP Top-25 finish in the previous 2 decades. As much as he might put a target on himself with how brash he sounds by telling his program on arrival that he’s got his own luggage and it’s “Louis,” context is still important.
Think about what a 6-6 Colorado team would yield. It would yield some victory laps for the pro-Sanders crowd to hit the “over”‘ on 5.5 regular season wins, especially with those aforementioned historical hurdles in Boulder. You could see another GameDay appearance (you know Big Noon Kickoff will make multiple trips to see Colorado). You could also see increased discussions about Shedeur Sanders in the NFL Draft, which is already a polarizing topic.
But if 6-6 does happen and Colorado pulls off an upset or 2, you could see Sanders’ name surface for bigger job openings. That’s chaos in itself even if Sanders publicly shuts those down in ways that he didn’t at Jackson State (he was far more honest than the vast majority of coaches in that spot).
What if Sanders goes 7-5 and there’s a vacancy at a place like Florida? Would there be any sort of discussion about that? Or would that still be too much of a leap? We don’t know.
We do know that Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter are Colorado’s best players. We also know that they’re both NFL Draft-eligible for 2025. The better Colorado is, the more likely it is that they take advantage of that. Both will have a wide variety of opinions, but it could also impact Sanders’ future. Perhaps he senses the long road ahead if those 2 leave for the NFL and he entertains possibilities elsewhere.
Again, we don’t know. We just know that chaos seems to follow Sanders.
Some would argue that 3-9 Colorado would also be chaotic. There’s some truth in that. If Sanders is going off on media members in press conferences or Shedeur Sanders blasts his offensive line, yeah, that’ll cause some chaos.
But if it’s a 3-9 team with obvious flaws, there’s not really much room for discourse. There’s not even much room for hot-seat discussion because Colorado athletic director Rick George is all in with Sanders. How many athletic directors wear jackets with their coach’s face and nickname on them?
There’s not an AD in college football more aligned with his head coach than Rick George is with Deion Sanders pic.twitter.com/adMNMMWVvn
— Connor O’Gara (@cjogara) October 14, 2023
Unless there’s a scandal, Sanders can go 0-12 and he’s not going anywhere. Period.
It’s far more chaotic to see him playing football in December. A more confident Colorado means more chaos. That’s obvious.
We could also still have the discourse about just how good Colorado is. At 6-6, plenty of teams could still have the last laugh on Sanders and Co. Maybe it won’t be 2023 Oregon levels of dominance, but the postgame flexing on Colorado will be a weekly staple. Shoot, we’ll have team accounts who’ll likely have their fun with trolling of Coach Prime. That’s the way it works now.
We got full Sanders experience in Year 1. “Bowl or bust” is now a fair mantra for Colorado. Of course, “bust” doesn’t relate to job security.
It’s bowl or bust for chaos.
Chaos Scenario No. 10 will publish later in the week. To spoil all 10 chaos scenarios for yourself, watch the full breakdown, as discussed on The Saturday Down South Podcast.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
