Paul Finebaum believes that Deion Sanders' Colorado football team will be too "terrible" for Shedeur Sanders' Heisman hopes to overcome during the 2024 season.
"I think it's about momentum," Finebaum said. "You start off with big numbers. I mean, Shedeur Sanders, could he get around the fact that his father's team is going to be terrible? I don't think so, no."
Finebaum has been frequently targeting Coach Prime this offseason, having first called him a "celebrity coach" in early June.
“First of all, he is a celebrity but he’s not a celebrity as a coach. To me, Deion, it’s all about what he did previously and I think that’s why I give him a lot of credit for calling himself Coach Prime. Because that puts the emphasis on being a coach,” Finebaum said on June 10 during the "McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning" radio show from Birmingham (h/t BuffsBeat). “But listen, he is an industry-created coaching celebrity. What happened last year was generational, but it was mostly forced and created, and it was really in many ways illegitimate.”
Colorado football QB Shedeur Sanders shouldn't have Heisman expectations
Many will mock CU for the 4-8 record in 2023, but those same talking heads will be the first to platform a question about Shedeur being a Heisman candidate. Ditto for two-way Buffs star Travis Hunter and his faux candidacy, barring a surprising first season back in the Big 12 from the Buffs.
With Coach Prime seeing six wins and a bowl game as a reasonable goal, any link to the Big 12 Championship or the Heisman is clearly not done in good faith. And Finebaum isn't the only one speaking of the Buffs in the same sentence as the Big 12 championship and the Heisman. Joel Klatt is drinking the Kool-Aid.
This talk is doing heavy lifting during the summer's dog days, but it's premature at best and, considering the team and coach we're dealing with, destructive to public perception by the time games roll around at worst.
Then again, the results eventually are the perception anyway.