Colorado football in same boat as UH, TCU, Texas Tech in Big 12 with QB carelessness, says Shedeur Sanders critic

Mountaineers Now's Schuyler Callihan put Shedeur Sanders and the Colorado football program in the same boat as Houston, TCU, and Texas Tech: teams not in the bottom quarter of the conference but struggling under center with above-average, but careless, QB play.

"There's a lot of hype around Shedeur Sanders and the Buffs, but this is a team that is still heavily reliant on transfers," Callihan prefaced before saying, "Depth remains an issue, although it's an improvement from what they had to work with a year ago. The other three - Houston, TCU, and Texas Tech - are all in the same boat. They have quarterbacks that are all above average but can get a little careless with the football at times. I'm not putting faith into any one of them. They'll give some teams some fits, but not consistently enough to be anywhere but the middle of the pack in the Big 12."

Houston's Donovan Smith, TCU's Josh Hoover, and Texas Tech's Behren Morton all had far inferior TD:INT ratios to Shedeur, but the "Grown QB" had a very notable flaw that defined his lack of judgement during too many instances in 2023.

Shedeur Sanders took too many sacks for Colorado football in 2023

Something that helped lead Shedeur to throwing just three interceptions in 2023 was his unwillingness to throw the ball away when no receivers' route led to an opening. That, in turn, led to 52 sacks and the Buffs' offensive line becoming a lightning rod.

In many ways, that helped lead to the entire group's ouster this offseason. Of course, that CU's running game was last in yards per game in the entire FBS also helped do the trick, but Shedeur certainly didn't do them any favors by preserving his completion percentage by taking sacks.

There's a new offensive line, mostly built through the portal, in 2024, but Shedeur must avoid taking massive yardage losses in the backfield instead of throwing the ball away.