Ray Lewis' message to Colorado football locker room featured fair expectations for Buffs' season

Ray Lewis' message to the Colorado football locker room was fair -- featuring expectations of losing in 2024 but stressing the need to learn something from those losses in order to go further in their careers.

"We keep failing because we keep trusting our talent," Lewis said (h/t BuffStampede). "Your talent is just like your gift, it runs hand in hand with your curse. And if you don't know how to balance that thing out, man, let me tell you something, this life will eat you alive. And the ups and downs of wins and losses will start to determine how you see life. I learned more in my losses than I learned in my wins. I learned more in my failures than I did in my wins.

"My losses defined who I am... on this side. I want you to think about three things: who are you, what do you represent, and what are you chasing? Those questions got to be answered before you leave this earth."

Colorado football may not reach Deion Sanders' goal of six wins and a bowl game

ESPN's Pete Thamel doesn't believe Colorado will reach Coach Prime's goal of six wins and a bowl game in 2024.

“Looking now I would take the under on 5.5,” Thamel said (h/t On3). “Now Shedeur, it needs to be said, I texted some NFL guys this morning because I knew we were going to be talking about this. A lot of NFL teams evaluated Shedeur last year because he was draft-eligible, and got a couple different responses back, but the thought is he’ll be at the top of this quarterback class.

“You can blame a lot of people for 52 sacks right? But at a certain point the quarterbacks’s gonna get rid of the ball on some of those … He needs to get better in realizing how to get out of things. So I’m a fan of Shedeur Sanders, we’re gonna have him in the green room in Green Bay next year. But I’m just not as confident on what’s around him, especially still up front. So I’m gonna go under.”

Between Deion Sanders' former teammates and ESPN analysts, there's very little confidence for Colorado in 2024. Luckily, preseason opinions have quite literally never decided a team's fate. On-field results have and will again, though.