Evaluating whether Colorado can make a bowl game in Deion Sanders’ first season

Can Colorado make a bowl game under Deion Sanders in Year 1? That’s the question On3’s J.D PicKell asked after a transformative offseason in Boulder.

Sanders rebuilt the entire Buffaloes roster through recruiting and the transfer portal, enacting a max exodus of former players from last year’s 1-11 team. If this shiny new Colorado football team is as good as they can be on paper, why can’t they make a bowl game?

There’s talent at Colorado, thanks to Sanders. Now they have to prove it.

“Can Colorado football make a bowl game this year, and this is a great question, this is a great unknown,” PicKell said on The Hard Count. “This is potentially the greatest unknown of the entire 2023 season, reason for that being, we have never seen anything like what Deion Sanders is doing in Boulder, Colorado with the nature of just flipping the entire roster from what it was a year ago.

“The players that were a part of the 1-11 season that Colorado had last year. they’re not really there anymore. With the exception of like a handful of players, coach Prime has brought in a whole new roster.”

That’s where PicKell made an interesting analogy, and it fits!

“And the best way I can describe this is whenever an old restaurant closes up shop and it shuts down and it’s done and then a new restaurant comes in and opens its doors in that same building,” PicKell said. “You kind of have an idea of what to expect. You kind of have memories from the last restaurant that used to be in that same building, but it’s a new menu. 

“It looks different. It smells different. It feels different when you walk in there so you have this former thought about what that place was. But in reality when you walk into that new restaurant, you have no idea what to expect.”

This could be an instant success for Colorado and Sanders or it could be a disaster right away.

“You have no idea what to expect from Colorado this 2023 season,” PicKell said. “Vegas thinks there’ll be somewhere around four-ish wins. Nobody knows because we’ve never seen anything like this in college football. It is a complete unknown. That’s why it’s a great question. But if Colorado is to make a bowl game in 2023, it means that Deion Sanders and his system worked. It means that you can flip your entire roster in the span of an offseason and be able to be successful. 

“Why? Because coach Prime just did it and made a bowl game in year one. Mark my words if they make a bowl game in year one, that is an unbelievable success for Coach Prime if that’s year one, that is absolutely phenomenal.”

*Follow all Colorado Buffaloes news on Facebook here*

If this works out for Colorado and Sanders instantaneously, this could break the mold on roster building for future coaches.

“Because that would mean that he was able to develop this roster, make them mesh, allow the staff and the roster to get on the same page, and it means that Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders, who both came from the FCS level, were always as advertised when they got the Power Five,” PicKell said. “Lastly, it would mean that what Deion Sanders did at Colorado is the blueprint now for every single first year head coach across the country. Hey, well we won two games the year before, doesn’t matter. What coach Prime did at Colorado, better hit the portal. better get to work. 

“No longer is it, grind it out and eventually build to it and eventually recruit three or four recruiting classes and get to where you want to go. It’s like if coach Prime can make a bowl game in year one, getting 50-plus new transfers. That’s the formula we want. That’s the expectation we’re allowed to have.”