I laughed it off.

During an appearance on The Next Round, I initially laughed at Lance Taylor’s prediction that Vanderbilt would win more games than Colorado in 2024. After all, Deion Sanders’ squad returned starting quarterback Shedeur Sanders and 2-way extraordinaire Travis Hunter, both of whom played significant roles in fueling a 3-win improvement this past season. The Buffs entered spring ranked No. 15 in America in percentage of returning production.

Vandy, meanwhile, came up with a 2023 goose egg against FBS teams from the 48 continental United States. It has new quarterbacks and new coordinators for a roster that somehow only ranked No. 76 in percentage of returning production, even after it failed to produce an NFL Draft pick for the third consecutive year under Clark Lea.

But the more I thought about it, the less funny it became. That is, the idea of Vandy winning more games than Colorado.

That’s not to say I’d pick Vandy to beat Colorado. Give me the Buffs there. But the schedule favors Vandy, not Colorado, which has 10 “Core-4” opponents, 7 of the last 8 of whom went to bowl games. That 2024 slate also features 6 games away from home.

Call me a hater. Or really, just call me highly skeptical that Colorado will reach a bowl berth after the offseason that’s been. Mind you, it’s a Colorado program with 1 7-win season in the past 18 years, so that’s not saying a whole lot.

It’s not the transfer portal numbers. I actually think Deion Sanders brought in more talent than he lost, which aligns with the fact that of 247sports’ ratings of Colorado’s top 25 transfers, 22 of them are incoming and only 3 are outgoing (CB Cormani McClain, RB Dylan Edwards and RB Anthony Hankerson). That’s a positive.

It’s not even the attention that Sanders and Co. got for quote-tweeting former players, though I don’t think that’s the best look long-term for someone coaching college athletes. It only adds to the target on Colorado, which feels significant. A 4-8 team shouldn’t be giving its opponents extra ammo. I’ll move past that for now.

But a few on-field areas are more concerning for the 2024 squad.

Let’s start with a defense that was among the 10 worst in college football. The Buffs have a new defensive coordinator in Robert Livingston, who spent 12 years with the Cincinnati Bengals but has never run his own unit. Even with some nice transfer portal upgrades on the defensive line, it’s a major uphill climb to turn around a unit that ranked No. 115 in yards/play allowed and No. 125 in opponent 3rd-down conversion percentage.

Hunter can’t make every play. He didn’t last year, though without him, Colorado would’ve been even worse than No. 127 in FBS against the pass. Mind you, that’s a unit that some would assume is a strength because of Sanders’ background. So far, that’s not been the case. Flipping that switch is far from a given.

Colorado played like a team that gave away far too many yards, and not just because it was the 2nd-most penalized team in America. The sack yards were astounding. Colorado lost 492 yards via sacks, which was the most in FBS by a whopping 126 yards. That was the most sack yards allowed by any FBS team since the NCAA began tracking that in 2005 (2011 Pitt was the next closest with 418).

Nobody in America was sacked more than Shedeur Sanders. Was bad offensive line play part of that? Absolutely. Deion Sanders repeatedly pointed to the offensive line as an issue. He vowed to overhaul that unit, which he did. Five new starters on the line will block for the second-year starting quarterback. But as CBS Sports’ Shehan Jeyarajah outlined, Shedeur Sanders actually ranked in the top 25 in FBS in time to throw, and only 5 Power 5 quarterbacks had a worse sack-to-pressure rate.

To recap, Colorado had an offensive line that struggled as well as a quarterback who struggled holding onto the football too long. Improving the o-line doesn’t necessarily guarantee that Sanders will significantly cut down on that high number of sacks taken.

Let’s also remember that while Sanders made some phenomenal plays when things broke down, offensive coordinator Sean Lewis was seen as a strength. At least externally. That’s why it was surprising when he lost play-calling duties in early November and took the head job at San Diego State at season’s end. So Colorado also a new offensive coordinator in Pat Shurmur. That’s someone who, up until he stepped into a co-OC/play-caller role with Lewis’ late-season demotion, hadn’t had an on-field role at the college level since 1998 when he was Stanford’s tight ends coach.

In those final 4 games with Shurmur as the offensive play-caller, all of which were losses, Colorado:

  • A) Scored 20 points once
  • B) Averaged 49.5 rushing yards w/ 1 run of 20 yards
  • C) Converted 32% of third downs
  • D) Averaged 4.7 yards/play
  • E) All the above

It’s “E.” It’s always “E.”

Yes, Sanders left the Washington State game after taking a big hit on a botched snap, which also knocked him out of the season finale against Utah. Still, though. That 4-game stretch didn’t exactly inspire a whole lot of offensive optimism for Shurmur.

The irony is that 3 of those November losses were actually 1-score games. The Oregon and Washington State blowout losses were the outliers for a Colorado team that lost 6 games by 12 points or less. But going 3-5 in 1-score games doesn’t suggest that a regression to the mean in that area is imminent.

The troubling issue for Colorado long-term is what happens if 2024 ends without a postseason berth and with Shedeur Sanders and Hunter leaving for the NFL. That would be the worst-case scenario for 2024. That’s the last thing on the minds of Colorado optimists. As for the realists who are trying to put narratives aside and just focus on the on-field product, Deion Sanders’ squad has plenty of issues to address as it returns to the Big 12.

The oddsmakers see it that way, too, which is why the over/under for regular season wins is 5.5, via DraftKings. Bowl or bust? You can say that. You can say many things about Colorado.

Just don’t be so confident that “more 2024 wins than Vandy” is one of them.