Colorado football quarterback Shedeur Sanders has no respect for the way Matt Rhule acted before the game — whether it was his transfer portal comments in April that aged like milk with the Buffaloes now 2-0 and his Cornhuskers 0-2 or his standing on the midfield logo before the game. Coach Prime’s son let Rhule have it after the September 9 Week 2 victory.
“It was extremely personal, we got out there and warmup and you got the head coach of the other team standing on the middle of the Buff,” Sanders said (h/t Denver Sports). “A couple players do it, it’s fine—enjoy the scenery. But when you got the whole team trying to disrespect it, I’m not going for that at all—so I went in there and disrupted it. They knew off rip, the Buffaloes mean a lot to me. That’s what I was saying pregame and I knew it was extreme disrespect.
“He said a lot of things about my pops, the program, but now that he wants to act nice, I don’t respect that because you’re hating on another man, you shouldn’t do that. All respect was gone for them and their program. I like playing against their DC, but the respect level wasn’t there.”
What Matt Rhule said about the Colorado football program in the offseason
Rhule did change his tone in the offseason after his initial comments in April, later praising Deion Sanders for taking the spotlight away from the SEC and Big Ten and onto the rest of the country.
“I’ll be honest with you: I’ve followed it from afar, you know, because they do such a good job of filming everything,” Rhule prefaced before saying, “I think it’s good for football right now. College football can’t just be, like, in the southeast and a couple of schools in the north. It’s got to be what Lincoln (Riley) is doing at USC, what Coach Sanders is doing in Colorado, hopefully what we’re doing in the middle of the country. Like, this has to be a nationwide thing. You can tell that Deion and his staff? They’re going to recruit relentlessly and they’re gonna they’re gonna have their team ready to play.”
It’s doubtful Rhule will speak ill of Sanders or Colorado anymore after a 36-14 drubbing in Boulder that made his Cornhuskers winless through the first two weeks of the 2023 season.