Phil Steele claims bowl game is 'unlikely' in Deion Sanders' first season at Colorado

No one truly knows what to make of Colorado under Coach Prime. Deion Sanders has brought a completely new vibe to Boulder. By the end of the season, though, how much of a difference is it going to make in their win column, especially after they went 1-11 in 2022?

Phil Steele sees improvement for Colorado, but only so much, in his preview of this college football season. On a positive note, he did give credit to Sanders for completely revamping the roster to the point where it’s better. However, he admits that it wouldn’t have taken much to accomplish that.

“Deion Sanders had great success at Jackson State and brought in the best class of transfers in the country. So this team is brand new and he is the fourth full-time head coach here since 2018,” Steele wrote. “If you read my position write ups? You will see that I feel each position is improved this year, including special teams. Now they were woeful last year so you would expect improvement.”

“But Sanders did a nice job landing talent through the portal after it was tough to bring in transfers the previous two years,” said Steele.

However, that also means that everything about Colorado is a giant question mark coming into the year. With few lulls in their schedule, specifically in the Pac-12, that leads Steele to believe that the Buffaloes are going to be better yet, also, not bowl-eligible in ’23.

“This team is an unknown quantity, an enigma,” said Steele. “But one thing I do know is that there are very few soft spots on the schedule. (That) will make contending in the Pac-12, or even a bowl game, unlikely in the first year of this total rebuild.”

It’s not like Sanders is taking over a program that was somewhere in the middle. It’s not like they were at least higher up in the bottom tier on the league. Colorado was dead last in the Pac-12 a season ago with only one win overall. In conference play, they tied with Stanford in last with a 1-8 mark. That then extends to only one winning season (2016) over the past 16 full seasons.

That run of inferiority is exactly why Colorado took a swing on Sanders to begin with. Even so, that isn’t necessarily going to get them back into a bowl game this season, at least not yet according to Steele.