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Analyst justifies Coach Prime elevating Pat Shurmur to full-time Colorado football offensive coordinator

By Andrew Hughes

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FOX Sports analyst and host of The Number One College Football Show, RJ Young, justified why Coach Prime elevated Pat Shurmur to the sole full-time Colorado football offensive coordinator after his midseason promotion in 2023 -- hyping up his midseason promotion to be co-OC with since-departed Sean Lewis and his Shedeur Sanders-less performance in Week 13 against Utah.

"I think people aren't really looking at Pat Shurmur the way that Prime [head coach Deion Sanders] is looking at Pat Shurmur," Young said (ht/ FOX Sports). "I probably looked at Pat Shurmur the way you did, for what it's worth. The way that I think Prime is looking at this is that Pat Shurmur did a great job as a playcaller at Colorado in Sean Lewis' stead to end the season.

"He also had to call a game without Shedeur Sanders, because Shedeur Sanders was out with a fractured back for the last game of the season. They had sacked that man 52 times in one year; that can't go on. But Pat Shurmur's also been around great quarterbacks for the better part of two decades."

At the time, Pat Shurmur's Colorado football promotion was deemed 'gamble' that didn't pay off

Young's opinion of the Shurmur full-time hire has the context of Lewis's departure from Boulder to become San Diego State's head coach, but CBS Sports' Will Backus called the move a gamble that didn't pay off after a 26-19 loss to Oregon State on November 4.

“Colorado coach Deion Sanders, desperately seeking a spark amid a rough stretch of four losses in five games, made a drastic change ahead of the Buffaloes’ Week 10 game against Oregon State by stripping offensive coordinator Sean Lewis of play-calling duties in favor of former NFL coach Pat Shurmur,” Backus prefaced before saying, “The gamble didn’t pay off. Colorado was held without a touchdown until late in the fourth quarter when the Buffaloes managed two scores in the last 15 minutes before ultimately falling 26-19.”

The losses, besides the bewildering 56-14 Week 12 Wazzu loss, had more dignity following the Lewis-to-Shurmur switch, and from the sounds of it, Shedeur is more of a fan of Shurmur's offense than Lewis's.

And in 2024, that's the primary motivation for Coach Prime's decisions on that side of the football.

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