Joel Klatt evaluates Colorado's rising ceiling in Big 12 after dominant win over UCF

Colorado has already won more conference games than it did last year. The Buffaloes made the jump from the Pac-12 to the Big 12 this offseason, and, all of a sudden, they find themselves as one of three Big 12 teams currently sitting at 2-0 in league play five weeks into the 2024 campaign.

The Buffaloes are coming off a head-turning performance at UCF, what FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt described as the program’s “most complete game” it’s had in quite some time.

“I’ve been a Colorado fan, played there, and that was as complete a game as Colorado has played in decades — on the road, 48-21. They were 15-point dogs. That’s pretty wild.

“And then you start looking around the Big 12, and you’re like, ‘Hold on a second.'”

The three Big 12 teams garnering the most attention in the preseason were Utah, Oklahoma State and Kansas State. All three of them have at least one loss so far this season. Oklahoma State has two, both in Big 12 competition. Utah just suffered a 23-10 home defeat to Arizona, which got clobbered by Kansas State earlier this season, 31-7. But Kansas State was on the wrong side of a blowout, too, experiencing a 38-9 setback to BYU.

While questions swirl about the expected Big 12 contenders, dark horses like BYU, Texas Tech, Iowa State and, yes, Colorado are creeping up. Klatt went as far as saying this week on his show that the Big 12 has kind of “flipped.”

Deion Sanders and his Buffaloes are at the center of that paradigm shift. Colorado’s offensive line took a much-needed step in the right direction against UCF, helping pave the way for 128 yards on the ground and allowing only two sacks. Plus, the Buffaloes’ defense gave up just 177 rushing yards to the Knights, who came into the matchup atop the country with 375.7 rushing yards per game. What’s more, Colorado forced four turnovers and tallied five sacks.

“They performed in every area,” Klatt said. “See, this was not a sideshow, folks. This was not a marketing experiment. No, no, no. This Colorado team, if they play like that, can beat anybody in the Big 12.”

Klatt added: “When teams have high highs and low lows, anything is possible. And what Saturday did for Colorado was raise their ceiling. Colorado’s ceiling is much higher now than it was before they played UCF. They still have Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders. Those guys performed as you would expect them to perform.”

Hunter played 128 snaps, continuing his two-way stardom. At receiver, he made nine catches for 89 yards and one touchdown. At cornerback, he created another highlight-reel takeaway, this time diving for an interception.

Sanders, meanwhile, completed 28-of-35 passes, or 80% of them, and threw for 290 yards while posting a 3:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

Klatt gave credit to Deion Sanders, who Klatt believes had the more fundamentally sound and physical team in Orlando during what was “an all-out victory for Colorado.”

“Now, I’m not suggesting that they will play to their ceiling every single week,” Klatt said. “I don’t believe that they will play to their ceiling every single week. Why? Nobody in college football does. It is so rare. So all that Colorado did is raise their ceiling. I think that we can now increase our potential expectations of what Colorado is in the Big 12.”

Klatt said he’d be surprised if Colorado doesn’t win at least three or four more games. That would put the Buffaloes at seven or eight wins.

“And if they play even a little bit better than that, in particular on defense — with the effort that we saw on defense [last weekend] — they might get to nine,” he said. “That’s exactly what I said in the preseason.

“I’ll tell you, man, that Big 12 changed dramatically on Saturday, and the impetus to the change happened in the Bounce House down in Orlando with Colorado.”