Colorado had 'best offseason' in college football, Joel Klatt says

Joel Klatt never hid his feelings about Colorado’s progress and now he said Deion Sanders’ team had the best offseason in all of the sport.

Sanders completely transformed the roster for the 2022 version and there are decently sized expectations already. But to put it all in perspective, the Buffaloes did more than any other program to put themselves in a positive light.

Klatt, a former Colorado quarterback himself, has to be pleased when he takes the analyst hat off.

“Colorado had the best offseason in all of college football,” Klatt said on The Herd. “Hands down … Well, here’s the deal. Let’s just think of it from a raw standpoint of what Colorado was in October of last year. They were the worst Power Five program in college football. They were 1-11, they lost by an average of 29 points. 29. By the way, Northwestern was also 1-11, also one of the worst records in Power Five. They lost by an average of 14. So Colorado doubled them up in terms of their ineptitude on the field.”

Klatt then pointed to what Sanders did immediately in the offseason to turn things around.

“And since that point, what’s happened, they hire Deion Sanders and become the center of the college football world,” Klatt said. “He gets a five-star recruit, he brings in the top transfer class in America, they sell out their spring game, then they get ahead of all this conference realignment and are the first to move to the Big 12.” 

Moving forward, Colorado expects to see progress on the field under Sanders. Not only that, the school returned to its original conference which could pay off in the long run.

“They actually get stability and revenue share moving forward,” Klatt said. “Who had a better offseason than Colorado? You go from the worst Power Five program in the country. And now all of a sudden they have momentum, they have a brand and they are at the center, in particular, early in the season of the college football world.”

There’s no reason Sanders shouldn’t like the transfer portal, as he’s brought in 48 players to Colorado through the transfer portal this offseason and has the No. 3 ranked transfer portal class in the nation according to On3’s Transfer Portal Index.

Sanders meanwhile just left Jackson State to rebuild Colorado, which went 1-11 last season. Sanders is 27-6 overall as a head coach with back-to-back conference titles at Jackson State.