The 2023 Colorado football team is set to simultaneously go down in history, and infamy, by the end of Coach Prime’s debut season in Boulder — because as BuffZone’s Brian Howell points out, the Buffs offense is on track to be the best in nearly 30 years, while the defense is set to be included in a quartet with some of the worst defenses CU has ever seen.
“To this point, CU has put together one of the best seasons on offense for the program in years, but the defense has been mostly dismal,” Howell prefaced before saying, “CU’s scoring average (34.4 per game) is on pace to be the program’s best since 1995 (36.9) and quarterback Shedeur Sanders is on his way to shattering most of the school passing records. He leads the country with 2,420 passing yards.
“Defensively, the Buffs are allowing 35.9 points and 473.7 yards per game, which is a big improvement over last year (45.5, 509.8). However, only four CU teams since 1980 have allowed more than 35.9 points and only two CU teams ever have given up more than 473.7 yards per game.”
Coach Prime’s debut season with Colorado football will go down as one of the sport’s all-time roller coasters
If one was to compare Coach Prime’s debut season with Colorado football to a roller coaster, you’d have to include the caveat that the very first drop was experienced blindfolded by the college football world.
Sure, some thought they had it figured out, thinking 2023 would be a disaster in Boulder, but the 4-2 start — which in and of itself surpassed the sportsbooks’ preseason over/under win projection — removed that label from the jump.
Oregon’s 42-6 destruction of CU was at least somewhat predictable, but the Stanford loss was a drop that seemingly also had the audience blindfolded beforehand.
With five games left in Deion Sanders’ debut campaign at Colorado as of this writing, there figures to be more unpredictability, and more screaming, yelling, and yes, even puking, from those on this roller coaster ride.