The 46-43 loss to Stanford on October 13 was one that’s “indelible” to the 2023 Colorado football experience, says Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio — who believes that the Coach Prime balloon has been severely deflated in the loss.
“The loss take plenty of air out of the Coach Prime balloon,” Florio prefaced before saying, “Whatever happens the rest of the way for the 4-3 team, the blowing of a 29-0 lead is something that will be indelible on the experience that is the 2023 Colorado Buffaloes, and Deion’s first year coaching big-time college football.”
Defensively, in particular, the air is gone. Giving up a score on every possession after halftime and blowing the biggest lead in program history is essentially a death blow to the unit; one that had finally returned Travis Hunter following three straight absences to kick off Pac-12 conference play. After a loss like this one, there could be some grand changes made to the depth chart by the time CU takes the field at the Rose Bowl on October 28. Perhaps a few players will think to “jump in the portal” like nearly the entire 2022 roster did last December through April.
Colorado football recruiting focus must be on defense in 2024 and beyond
Here we thought the offensive line was the main problem for the Buffs, which against top-ranked defensive fronts like Oregon, still is a significant issue. But against a bottom-feeder like Stanford, the issue was the defense. Full stop.
Giving up 294 receiving yards and three touchdowns on 13 catches to a player in Elic Ayomanor who hadn’t broken 50 yards or five catches, and had scored one touchdown in his career, is the kind of circumstance that requires a good hard look in the mirror.
Coach Prime and Co. will definitely do that plenty with two weeks until their next game. What a bye week of news bites this is about to be, though, because of the worst second-half performance of the season from any team in the nation in a Week 7 to forget.