Coach Prime seemed oblivious to his late-game clock management gaffe in Colorado loss

Deion Sanders took plenty of heat on social media following his late-game clock management gaffe in Colorado's 27-20 loss to Georgia Tech on Friday night.

Following Haynes King's go-ahead 45-yard touchdown run to put the Yellow Jackets ahead, Colorado was left with 1:07 on the game clock and two timeouts to try and get the ball down the field and force overtime.

In 67 seconds, Colorado managed to run only six plays.

The most egregious error was on a 2nd-and-12 at their own 23. The ball is snapped with just under 50 seconds to play. Kaidon Salter completes an 11-yard pass to Hykeem Williams, who comes up one yard short of the first down. With two timeouts in his pocket, Sanders decides to hang on to them, perhaps hoping they can roll over into next week's game against Delaware.

The Buffs didn't get another snap off until 28 seconds were left on the clock. So in two plays, Colorado gained a net of nine yards and used up 39 seconds of precious game clock.

That would be bad enough on its own. Worse yet, Coach Prime seemed oblivious to the massive error in clock management when he was asked about it in the postgame.

"I think we got out of bounds a couple of times," Sanders said when asked about the end-of-game clock management. "So we didn't have to take them. So that's what transpired. We got out of bounds, I think on both sidelines, and that's what happened.

"After the first, I think, we got a good play, and we caught the ball, I think, for nine yards. We got one yard to go. So if you get the first down the clock stops. So it don't make sense to really use your timeout in that sense. We were just really trying to preserve them to we certainly needed them. I don't wanna go home with no timeouts, they don't do me no good, but you gotta be strategic as well. Just burning timeouts just to burn them so you guys don't say nothing, that don't make no sense."

Deion Sanders' explanation of his clock-management gaffe makes absolutely zero sense

End-of-game situations like the one Colorado found themselves in on Friday night are all about one thing: maximizing the number of opportunities you have to get the ball down the field to score. In no circumstance can you allow nearly 40 seconds of game clock to elapse on two snaps of the football, especially when you have two timeouts.

The decision-making by Coach Prime in that situation was poor. His explanation of it was even worse and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of clock management.

Look, Colorado probably doesn't win the game even if Sanders uses his timeouts correctly in that situation. But it sure would have been nice to see them get a few more cracks at the endzone at the end.