There is zero doubt what has been the biggest story of the 2023 college football season – Coach Prime and the Colorado Buffaloes. Take me back to the middle of August and I would never have believed I would type that sentence.
What Deion Sanders has accomplished in eight short months on the job is absolutely astounding. Make no mistake; he took over a program that was completely adrift, turned over the majority of the roster and started 3-0 with three of the most viewed games of the college season. Nobody without the last name of Sanders could’ve genuinely expected that to happen.
At some point, every Cinderella meets midnight. The clock seemed to strike twelve for the Buffs in Eugene, Oregon Saturday. Colorado was never in a game that finished in a 42-6 Oregon win. Everything you feared about this Colorado roster appeared in one dreadful afternoon. The best two-way player, Travis Hunter, was sidelined with injury and there is no replacing him. Their lines of scrimmage were overwhelmed resulting in Oregon out gaining Colorado by 323 yards. Running for his life, quarterback Shedeur Sanders had by far his worst passing day. It was an across the board failure for The Buffs.
That raises an important question: What does the media do now with Colorado? The Buffaloes have been television gold to this point of the season. The only game to have better TV ratings in week one was a stand alone Sunday night game featuring Florida State and LSU. In week two, only college football royalty, Texas at Alabama, had more viewers. The biggest ratings test was week three when Colorado didn’t kick off until 10:30 pm ET. That game was the number one game of the week and still had more than 8 million viewers at 2:15 AM ET. Again this past weekend, the initial overnight ratings showed Colorado at Oregon took the top spot. That’s two noon ET, a 3:30 pm ET and a 10:30 pm ET window that Colorado has turned into a massive TV number.
Will it continue if they start losing games? The possibility is there, it all starts Saturday with undefeated USC visiting Boulder for FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff, the Trojans are a three touchdown favorite over the Buffs. After that, Colorado gets a bit of breathing room against the dregs of the PAC 12, on the road at Arizona State and at home against Stanford. After those two “breathers” the schedule is mostly unrelenting with UCLA, Oregon State, Arizona, Washington State and Utah. Becoming bowl eligible will be a massive accomplishment for Sanders’ squad.
Teams battling for bowl eligibility aren’t normally big ratings winners, their games normally relegated to the conference networks rather than the ESPNs and FOXs of the world. But, this is no normal team. Everything Colorado has been big ratings, viewership and clicks for the outlets that cover college football.
There is a possibility that the people who have watched in massive numbers hoping Colorado will win will continue watching even if the wheels start to come off. Likewise, those watching in hopes Colorado will lose big will tune in to “hate watch” the rest of the schedule. Either way, I don’t expect the coverage of Colorado to decrease at all. Simply, the demand is still there.
If Colorado starts dropping games, they become injured Tiger Woods. For the better part of a decade, Woods would limp his injured body into majors with what seemed like equal odds of winning and withdrawing due to injury. There were times it was tough to watch…but, we watched every shot. We watched every shot because the networks showed every shot. It did not matter if Tiger was 10-under or 10-over, we saw Tiger do everything.
Tiger got that treatment because he was the best in our generation by a mile. Colorado has not been the best but there are no rules in what the public demands for coverage. They get to dictate what they want to consume and, if ratings is our goal, it is our job to provide them as much of that as they demand. That means Colorado coverage isn’t going anywhere. As Deion Sander loves to say, “We Comin.” The question is “Will you be watching?” Something tells me you’ll be given every opportunity.
Ryan Brown is a columnist for Barrett Sports Media, and a co-host of the popular sports audio/video show ‘The Next Round’ formerly known as JOX Roundtable, which previously aired on WJOX in Birmingham. You can find him on Twitter @RyanBrownLive and follow his show @NextRoundLive.
