Colorado vs. Nebraska goes ‘0-60,’ amplifying Cornhuskers' opportunity

One game is going to dominate the early portion of this week’s college football slate. Colorado will see Deion Sanders on the sideline of Folsom Field for the first time, making enough headlines. The Nebraska Cornhuskers coming to town only adds to the intrigue, rekindling a bitter old Big 8 rivalry.

Somehow, the matchup got another jolt of energy when Colorado took down TCU. Despite being a three-touchdown favorite, Sanders was able to shock the country by getting a win in Fort Worth. With Nebraska losing their opening game against Minnesota, the intensity on Saturday definitely went up a couple of notches.

“I think we all thought TCU was going to win handily,” Sean Callahan of On3’s Husker Online said during Thursday’s episode of Andy Staples On3. “How many times does a 24-point dog win straight up? It doesn’t happen very often.

“I think everyone was like ‘TCU is going to win this game like 48-14. And Nebraska is going to comfortably roll into Boulder and be ready to go.’ Just the way this thing went from 0-60 so quickly, that’s what made this so unique.”

Colorado fans have been waiting for this moment since Sanders was hired. The atmosphere in Boulder has been lacking over the past few seasons and rightfully so. What the Buffaloes have put onto the field provided some historically bad results. Even before the TCU win, Sanders would have brought energy into Folsom Field.

Still, Callahan believes Nebraska will find a way to get a few fans in there. Looking at the pictures from the 2019 matchup, there was a lot of red in Boulder. Colorado may do a better job squeezing the Huskers out this time but the folks from Lincoln are still going to travel.

“It’s the opening game of the Deion Sanders at Colorado,” Callahan said. “There’s going to be a lot of Nebraska fans there, though. Don’t undersell that angle. We saw that in 2019 where over 60% of the stadium was Nebraska fans. Now, they tried to keep Nebraska fans out but Nebraska fans will still come.”

Unfortunately, the rest of us will have to watch from home. FOX will be broadcasting the game on Big Noon Kickoff and a huge number is expected when ratings come out. A ton has been made of new people tuning in to watch Colorado. Well, the same is true for Nebraska — at least on Saturday.

“You don’t get these opportunities,” Callahan said. “There could be over 10 million people watching this game… You don’t get those kind of opportunities. The last time this many people watched a Nebraska football game was either the ’09 Big 12 title game with (Ndamukong) Suh.

“And then the 2010 game was nine million when they played Oklahoma. So, they haven’t had this many eyeballs on a Nebraska game in a long time.”