Josh Pate does not sound interested in re-litigating the Deion Sanders debate through the usual extremes.
On his latest show, Pate made it clear he still believes Sanders has already succeeded at Colorado, even after the Buffaloes “fell back to earth a little bit” last season.
“The second season that he had out there to me made everything worth it,” Pate said. “Like I really think the second season going nine and four was just a miracle. Really no other way to describe it.”
That is the center of Pate’s argument. Before Sanders arrived, Colorado was in such rough shape that even modest progress would have mattered. In Pate’s view, winning nine games did far more than that.
“If you told me at any point he’s going to win nine games in a season, cuz it was taken them like three years to win nine combined games before he got there, if he’s going to win nine games in a single season, it’s been worth it and then some, and he has overachieved as far as I’m concerned,” Pate said.
Pate believes much of the criticism aimed at Sanders now ignores what Colorado football actually was before his arrival. He described that reaction as a “trap.”
“On this show, we call the trap the recalibration of expectation,” Pate said.
He explained that some critics predicted Sanders would never win more than four games at Colorado. But after Sanders won nine, those same critics simply shifted the standard.
“Then Deion wins nine games,” Pate said. “Well, then that same person instead of saying, ‘Whoa, he doubled the highest win total I ever thought he’d get in a season,’ instead of saying that, he says, ‘Well, he’s never going to win the Big 12. Well, he’s never going to make the playoff.’”
Even with Colorado coming off a three-win season, Pate did not back off his original position.
“I will maintain my stance that he made Colorado the epicenter of college football for a little while,” he said.
Pate also acknowledged the challenge ahead. Colorado no longer has Shedeur Sanders at quarterback or Travis Hunter, and he said, “It’s really hard to duplicate that.”
Still, his bottom line never wavered. “I think Deion’s been a success at Colorado,” Pate said, “because I know Colorado.”
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