Overachieving Colorado football coach opens up on representing his home state for first time

Colorado football offensive line coach Phil Loadholt, a Fountain-Fort Carson High School product, is proud to be representing his home state for the first time as a player or a coach as an adult -- calling it a full-circle moment.

“I’m super fired up to be here, excited to be back home,” said Loadholt (h/t BuffZone). “This is my home state. Working for Coach Prime has been great so far and I’m just looking forward to building an elite unit up front. So I’m excited to be here.

“It was full circle for me, obviously, being about an hour and 45 minutes down the road. So being able to come back to my hometown, spend time with my parents and my sister who still live here, it’s great. I’m fired up about it. You know, being in an analyst role, I got to work with some great coaches. … I learned a lot from those guys and was able to pick something from each one of them and so I’m excited to do it. I’ve been wanting to do it for a while and I’m glad the opportunity came.”

Phil Loadholt lauded for work in rebuilding Colorado football offensive line

Denver Sports' Jake Shapiro characterized Loadholt's first week on the job as nailing the talent acquisition portion of his job.

"No offensive line in the country was worse than the Colorado Buffaloes this past year, but Deion Sanders has done a lot of work early in the offseason to correct the issue heading into 2024," Shapiro wrote. "This week Sanders announced former NFL lineman Phil Loadholt will lead the unit, and the man in charge of the big boys has already nailed the talent acquisition portion of his gig. On Saturday alone, four starting offensive linemen from other FBS programs committed from the transfer portal to join Coach Prime in Boulder."

While some may have a problem with the schools Loadholt and Coach Prime recruited the Buffs' offensive line transfer portal haul from -- that being center Yakiri Walker (Connecticut), guards Tyler Johnson (Houston) and Justin Mayers (UTEP), and tackle Kahlil Benson (Indiana) -- their acquisition of Jordan Seaton, despite CU's reputation from last season in the offensive trenches, was a masterstroke of recruiting.

Colorado is also operating with a modest NIL budget. Getting the kind of talent they did at an expensive position further illustrates how well Loadholt and Deion Sanders did over this past offseason.

And their work may not even be done yet.