NFL
By: Mark T. Wilson
Any given Sunday. But in the case of the Colorado Buffaloes, it’s any given Saturday. With Colorado holding their Big 12 Championship Game chances in their own hands, they decided to play as if the moment was too big for them. Maybe it was.
Now, let’s not take anything away from the Kansas Jayhawks. For three straight weeks, the Jayhawks stole the Catalytic Converter from the cars of Colorado, BYU, and Arizona State. Kansas is not even bowl-eligible, and they are messing up the College Football Playoff landscape.
But make no mistakes about it. This was a game that Colorado needed to have, and they s*** the bed. Head coach Deion Sanders said they fumbled away their chance. No, Sanders, you didn’t fumble away anything; you wilted under pressure. As hot as Colorado has been this season, they don’t deserve to be mentioned with the CFB heavyweights.
What sets teams on a one-year upswing and dynasty-level teams is their ability to be there at the end. You know, getting a win when a tough win is needed. This was not Georgia and Alabama doing battle in Week 11. This was Colorado getting beat by a team with just 4 wins on the season.
Yes, 2 of those came against ranked opponents but Colorado was supposed to be different. Their destiny was laid before them on silk sheets. There was no way Sanders was not going to have his team prepared for the biggest game of his tenure with the Colorado Buffaloes so far.
With that loss, the Buffaloes will need to beat Oklahoma State and then pray they can get help from others. It’s a long shot but one that can be achieved but it shouldn’t have come to this.
On any given Saturday, any team can be beat. But if Sanders wants his team to be up there with the top dawgs in College Football, games like this cannot happen. Making the BIG 12 Title Game would have cemented this team as legit. Win or lose, everyone had to take notice of the great turnaround that happened this season.
Now, we’re all shaking our heads trying to decipher what happened and what could happen next week. The Colorado Buffaloes are bowl-bound. But they could have gone further with a win. The rest of the Conference damn near gift-wrapped them a spot in the title game. All they had to do was handle business.
Sanders has done a great job but these are the games that could put a downer on a good season. On the other hand, a game like this needed to happen. Colorado has so many flaws that sheer talent is not enough. It could be used as a wake-up call and one that Sanders could use as a jolt to his team.
No matter what happens, this team has beaten the odds this season but to have something so close and then to let it slip away, has to hurt. Sanders is building something special in Boulder but the Colorado Buffaloes cannot be mentioned with the best teams in College Football just yet. These are the games Nick Saban and Kirby Smart wins.
