There’s no sugarcoating it. No rebranding the narrative. No motivational detour around the hard truth. Heading into his fourth season leading the Colorado Buffaloes, Deion Sanders is distilling his mission down to three words: “We gotta win.”
It’s a deceptively simple declaration, but it carries the full weight of a program at a crossroads.
Deion Sanders’ Expectations for Colorado’s 2026 Season
Sanders’ tenure in Boulder has been nothing short of turbulent. His 2023 debut season captured the nation’s imagination when the Buffaloes stormed out to a 3-0 start, including a stunning upset of No. 17 TCU. The fairy tale faded fast, however, and Colorado lost eight of its final nine games that year.
The program rebounded in 2024 with a 9-4 campaign and a bowl appearance, fueled in large part by two-way star Travis Hunter, who won the Heisman Trophy. Disaster arrived in 2025. Following the departures of Hunter and Sanders’ son, quarterback Shedeur Sanders, the Buffaloes went just 3-9, with six losses by double digits.
The rebuild has since gotten underway. Sanders has overhauled his coaching staff and shifted the team’s recruiting philosophy in a meaningful way. While Colorado targeted roughly 15 high school prospects this cycle, Sanders is still leaning heavily on the transfer portal, adding over 40 incoming transfers to overhaul the roster.
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Sanders is especially bullish on his new offensive coordinator, Brennan Marion.
“Because now we have what we want in the depth that we want in certain positions,” Sanders said. “Now we could go to high schools to fulfill the rest of them. Brennan Marion is our OC. He’s a tremendous former head coach, tremendous mind in college football.
“What he’s going to do for the offense is going to be tremendous, because he’s averaged in his whole career. He’s averaged 30 to 35 points a game, and that’s our threshold for winning. When we normally score 30 points a game, we normally win.”
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To his credit, Sanders acknowledges that Colorado has achieved real off-field success. The program recently achieved a cumulative GPA above 3.0 for the first time in school history, reaching record academic marks under his leadership.
That’s not nothing. Character development, graduation rates, and academic excellence are pillars of his program.
Sanders wants to get back in the win column. With quarterback Julian Lewis returning and a refreshed roster Sanders believes in, the Buffaloes are positioned for a bounce-back season in the Big 12.
Lewis appeared in four games for Colorado as a freshman, completing 55.3% of his passes for 589 yards, 4 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions with a 122.0 passer rating.
