Joel Klatt discusses the rare feat Colorado, Deion Sanders achieved in Week 1
Hello, Colorado. After going 1-11 in 2022, Deion Sanders stole even more of the national spotlight by tying that win total in his debut with a 45-42 win at No. 17 TCU. After being on the call for that one for FOX in Fort Worth this weekend, even Joel Klatt, someone who’d backed Sanders as his alma mater’s next head coach, couldn’t quite believe what he saw.
Klatt explained his opportunity to watch the Buffalo’s upset this weekend during his show on Monday. To him, what they did against the Horned Frogs was extraordinary considering how hyped and doubted that they were all at the same time.
“In sports, whether it’s individual or team sports, I think one of the most rare things that happens in, again, any sport is when hype, hyperbole, and potential are matched by performance. It’s an incredibly rare thing. That’s what we got to witness on Saturday,” said Klatt. “The hype surrounding Colorado, Coach Prime, and that team was, let’s face it, to some, too much. It was too high. Vegas didn’t believe it, nobody believed it. And this guy just kept preaching.”
“He’s like, ‘Why? Why? We’re coming out there to dominate. I’m bringing my baggage and it’s Louis! I got Heisman-type players on my team!'” said Klatt. “All this stuff and everybody’s like, ‘Ah, man. I don’t know’. And then even his son, Shedeur, chimes in out there on social media – ‘Do you believe now?'”
Still, as someone who has supported Sanders’ hire, it’s also much of what Klatt expected to see from Colorado this season. He may not have thought that they were going to necessarily win outright but he saw the immediate improvement that he thought that he’d see from the Buffalo roster as well as the publicity around the head coach and program from the very start.
“I have been preaching that I felt like Colorado was going to be drastically improved, in particular at the skill positions, that they were going to win at least one of the first two. I felt like I was in the minority in that thought,” Klatt said.
“From day one, I felt like this was an incredible hire by Colorado because of what they needed in terms of the energy and the exposure, which, obviously, Deion provided,” continued Klatt. “They needed a guy that could go out there and acquire talent. Guess what? He acquired talent and that was put on display on Saturday.”
This is going to be a win that many fans remember all season long, regardless of what Colorado does from here. Considering the added context of the exposure on the Buffaloes and their massive roster retool this offseason, it’s also one that Klatt won’t soon forget either since he saw it live and in person.
“Again, when you match expectations? When you match hype? It’s quite incredible. And, by the way, even more than that? It was also something that we’d never seen before in the history of the sport,” said Klatt. “Totally unprecedented, what Colorado and Coach Prime had done during the offseason when revamping that lineup. They had 68 new scholarship players. That’s insane.”
“It’s a brand new team, it’s an All-Star team, if you will. And they went out there and they won the game,” Klatt said. “It was quite remarkable.”