Colorado football got off to a blazing start to the 2023 season before struggling down the stretch and limping to the finish line. They dominated teams they were supposed to, but Colorado football struggled in high-profile matchups against elite competition.
The Buffaloes will look to build on their success while taking a step forward against better competition and positioning themselves for postseason play. Colorado football has a great opportunity to make some noise with the expanded 12-team playoff this year, and the return of several talented and experienced players will go a long way toward determining the team’s success.
Shedeur Sanders will lead the way at quarterback
The Buffaloes will be returning their flashy and electrifying quarterback, Shedeur Sanders. Deion’s son has all the glitz and glamour that Prime Time had in his heyday with the Dallas Cowboys.
Don’t let the flashiness fool you, though. Shedeur is an excellent player in his own right who is more than capable of leading a team to success.
Sanders is a dual-threat quarterback, although he does most of his damage passing the ball. He’s incredibly mobile and can maneuver with ease outside the pocket. His ability to throw on the run is elite, and he has remarkable vision and accuracy when throwing from outside the pocket. He can throw off-platform in a way that is reminiscent of Patrick Mahomes, although Sanders doesn’t have the same prodigious level of arm strength as guys like Mahomes or Josh Allen have.
Sanders might not have the best arm strength, but he isn’t weak by any means. He is certainly capable of throwing the ball 50 or even 60 yards with elite accuracy.
Further, there’s a difference between arm strength and arm talent. Arm strength simply means how far you can throw the ball. Arm talent, on the other hand, refers to the ability to throw the ball deep with accuracy or make accurate off-platform throws. While Sanders might be average-at-best in terms of pure throwing power, his arm talent is remarkable.
He gets enough velocity on the ball to thread needles and fit passes between defenders to his receivers in tight coverage. This is most often the case of a slot receiver running an in-breaking route between a linebacker and a safety or an outside receiver running a post and breaking off the route between a cornerback and a safety.
These throws require precision, velocity, and accuracy. If the ball isn’t thrown hard enough, a defender will have time to jump in front of it for an interception.
Ultimately, Shedeur is the engine that makes the Buffaloes go, and his return is critical to the team's prospects for success. If he can elevate his game to a new level, the Buffaloes have a chance to do something special this year.
Travis Hunter is two-way star, potential No. 1 overall pick
For all the high praise and flashiness around Deion’s son, he is surprisingly not the best player on Colorado's roster. That honor would belong to Travis Hunter, the team's star skill position player.
Hunter is unique in that he is a two-way player, something exceedingly rare in modern football beyond the high school level. The game has simply gotten too physical to the point where most players need to rest between series so they can stay fresh and maintain their peak level of athletic performance.
Hunter plays wide receiver and cornerback, which provides him with plenty of opportunities to impact each game.
Offensively, Hunter is a dynamic receiver who wins through finesse, speed and agility, rather than sheer strength or height. His route running is incredibly advanced for the collegiate level, and he has a seemingly preternatural instinct of when and how to get defenders off balance, where they are susceptible to subtle deviations in the receiver’s route. Hunter is great at double moves and some of the flashier plays, but he also understands the intricacies of his position. He excels at the subtle plays as well as the flashy ones.
As great as he is at the showtime plays that can go for touchdowns, he’s at his best using head fakes and slight speed changes to get defenders off balance. This skill set gives Hunter a nearly insurmountable edge in seemingly every matchup that he encounters. This is a sustainable advantage that makes the third-year player an incredibly valuable asset for his team.
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