This isn’t the same old Colorado Buffaloes culture from a year ago.
During Tuesday’s press conference, Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders shared the changes he made to his roster after a disappointing 41-7 beatdown against Northwestern on Saturday.
“A few guys are not on the team anymore, so you know,” Sanders said.
The decision wasn’t made just because of the loss. Sanders highlighted a pattern of behavior and detrimental conduct that he felt needed to be addressed. The decision also shows Sanders' lack of contentment with the current performance of the Buffs.
“It's never one (thing),” Sanders said. “Those guys can tell you I'm the most loving and giving and forgiving man you could ever meet.
But when you start being conduct detrimental to the team, that will set us back in things that you're doing that you don't care about the team; you care about you. I have a problem with that, and a year ago I didn't put my foot down on it enough.”
“It lingered a little bit. Then, it imploded. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that anymore.”
After the 3-9 season that spiraled out of control a year ago, Sanders learned from his mistakes. Growing as a coach, he made the decision on his own. With no input from coaches or second opinions from players, he had to act.
“I ain't got to consult with nobody to do what I know was right. I don't have to do that,” Sanders said. “I got to protect them. I got to protect that whole group. And we got a group of young men that I love to life, which I love all of them.”
With a decision of magnitude like that, players will certainly have opinions and react. Coach Prime described the immediate thoughts by his player leaders after hearing the news.
“They came up to me yesterday, and they said, ‘We want to get ahead of anything. Tell us who may be on that list next. So let's get ahead of it.
We want to go and get on them and make sure they're doing the right thing, and make sure they're where they're supposed to be and make sure they're not going out of bounds.’ So I applaud them for that, for coming to me ready to get ahead of it.”
With Big 12 play coming up, Coach Prime’s Buffs are at a crossroads early in their season. How they respond will tell the true DNA of the 2026 team.
Sanders did not share which players he removed or how many. BuffStampede will report on further updates as they come.
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