Paul Finebaum reveals 'biggest challenge' Colorado faces in bids for Big 12 title, College Football Playoff

Head coach Deion Sanders has the Colorado Buffaloes in a position few thought was possible at the start of the season, in the race for the Big 12 Championship and the College Football Playoff. Now, Sanders needs to find a way to finish the season strong.

ESPN’s Paul Finebaum believes he not only sees the path forward for Colorado but shared on First Take that he believes the way for the Buffaloes to make the conference championship game and the Playoff comes down to keeping their focus and avoiding distractions.

“I think right now they’re going to get in,” Paul Finebaum said. “It’s a matter of having to beat the rest of the teams on their schedule, which I think they will. Then, win the championship game against BYU, which I think they’re very capable of.”

There is, consistently, more discourse around Deion Sanders and Colorado than the majority of programs in the country. That, lately, has included discussions about whether or not it would make sense for Sanders to leave Boulder for the Dallas Cowboys. So, Finebaum believes that the challenge is focusing on the task at hand.

“And I keep saying this but if you go back to Jackson State, which may not be a fair comparison, at the end of the last two seasons there, there was a lot of speculation about Prime. He might be leaving, and they lost those bowl games. I think that’s his biggest challenge. I think he’s capable of it…just keeping the noise out. Obviously, the Dallas story is rampant, which you [Stephen A. Smith] sat here the other day and reverberated around the sports world if he can manage to do that,” Finebaum said.

“I think he can, his players have shut out everything in the past, then I think they’ll win out, get to the Playoff, and we have ourselves one of the great stories in College Football history.”

Colorado is currently second in the Big 12, behind BYU. If the Buffaloes win out, they’ll make the conference championship game where a win would catapult the Buffaloes into the College Football Playoff. However, suffering a single loss could cost the Buffaloes and have them end up in a tiebreaker scenario for the conference.

Paul Finebaum on the case for Deion Sanders to be Dallas Cowboys’ next head coach

While the Dallas Cowboys still have Mike McCarthy at head coach, the possibility of replacing him with Deion Sanders has been discussed in the media, including by Paul Finebaum.

“It makes more sense for the Cowboys, really than it did even at Colorado. In some ways, it’s an easier job. I know that sounds ridiculous, but what he’s had to overcome at Colorado, to get them in a situation where we’re talking about them as conference champion, or maybe even a CFP entrant, is really spectacular, and one of the craziest stories that I’ve ever seen,” Finebaum said.

“The reason why I think he works with Dallas, and it was just mentioned a minute ago, not only does he help the locker room, he might be the only person in America that Jerry Jones will listen to, and that’s the most important thing. Yes, he relies on his son, but he would also look at Deion as his other son. I think that could be the ticket. We all know the glitz and the glamour of the most valuable franchise in sports. You put Deion in there, not only as the centerpiece of that — put some great coaches around him, which obviously has to happen, and let Jerry pay attention to someone other than himself.”