Saturday night's win was a passionate and personal one for head coach Deion Sanders and Colorado.
Sanders discussed a variety of key points after the game and further elaborated on the importance of the win.
Here's everything he said after the game in Fort Collins:
Opening statement: “First of all, thank you all for being here. Wonderful game. Personal game. Heartfelt game, emotional game. They kind of make it like that. We just wanna play football. The disrespect was uncalled for throughout the week. A couple of their players took shots at the whole program and a few of our players, so it is what it is. So we knew coming into the game it was gonna be a bit personal, and it was. I think one of our coaches, coach (Jason) Phillips, during warmups one of the guys ran into him and elbowed him, which is uncalled for. I just pray that our kids never act in that manner because I know you guys would have a field day if they did, but I know you won’t say anything or do anything when the opposing team does that vs. us. Make derogatory comments throughout the week about our program. Great darn victory. Offensive line was phenomenal, did a great job not only run blocking but pass blocking as well. The defense picked up right where it left off in the second half last week, and started the game and kept the momentum for the entirety of the game. I’m upset, I think the last touchdown we gave up, that was 4th-and-1 or whatever. They got an explosion on that, so we’re not happy with that at all. 12 penalties 115 yards is not pretty, well, some of that stuff is not — God, we’ve got some great refs. We really do, but some of that stuff is questionable. You know, you can always question it, just unbelievable. But we got it. We did what we needed to do to come out here with this victory. We just really wanted to be decisive. We didn’t wanna leave no ifs, ands, we didn’t wanna leave none of that on the table. Unfortunately, it gets like that when you have these types of rivalries, and that’s what transpired. Let’s go.”
On why highlighting the offensive line is important: “I don’t know. Did you ask Shedeur? I don’t know. You guys buried them last week after the game. You didn’t say anything tremendously positive when they, I think they almost went for 500 yards of total offense Week 1. Where was the praise and the love? But it was a lot of hate and disdain and here we go again. Here we go again! Yeah that’s what they got. These are young men, they’re not old as I am and waxed with gray and have wisdom and understand how to handle the foolishness. They’re not like that, man. They still are filled with feelings and emotions. They get those text messages and that stuff they have online and they get the DMs and they get all that stuff. And that don’t make them feel well because you’re treating them like professionals. I don’t mind, but just treat everybody the same and I’m cool.”
On if the disrespect during the week is why CU had the starting offense in at the end of the game: “No. I mean, we wanna score. This game is about scoring isn’t it? I don’t know protocol. You should’ve called me and told me when to pull off. As long as the other team is trying to score, we’re trying to score. That’s my rule.”
On if that’s as good as Travis Hunter can be: “No. Travis is phenomenal week in and week out. We’ve got a quarterback that’s phenomenal too, we’ve just gotta protect him. The whole country knows that. So, we did a great job of that today. When you see us do that, you’re gonna see 36-for-49, no turnovers, how many yards did he have? 310. Oh God if we would’ve hit that big one to Jimmy (Horn Jr.). Shoot. If we’d have hit that big one that would’ve been even greater.”
On what a game like this can do for Micah Welch’s confidence: “It does a lot for his confidence. He was playing high school this time last year. Now he’s playing on one of the largest stages in college football. Believe it or not, I think it is. How many times have they sold out here? This is the first time they’ve sold out here? Why didn’t y'all say that? Why was that? You know darn well why was that. This kid’s playing in front of sellout crowds, I think the largest crowd he’s probably ever played in front of was four or five thousand. So that’s a lot for, not only Micah but some of the people that came over out of the portal. I know some of them have played against teams that had phenomenal followings, but every week and the eye on you every week to perform, it’s phenomenal and it’s trying for a young man. We’ve gotta do a better job of building them up for the moment. And we try our best, we have so much support and so many people that try and pour into them to get them ready and develop as men for these types of contests weekly.”
On what has led to the defense’s success: “We have some guys that are pretty good defensively. These guys, they want it. No one’s satisfied with their performance. I think we finally got a darn sack. We finally got a turnover. We finally got a couple of picks, which was satisfying. But these guys who play the game, they work their butts off at practice, they work their butts off watching film. I think the average film time is probably 3.5 or 4 hours per guy. We put it on the board cause we want everybody to see how much each other watches film so we understand everybody’s prepared. But these guys are doing it. Shoot, coach Rob (Livingston) is doing a wonderful job, man, he really is. And Pat (Shurmur) is as well. They’re doing a wonderful job with what we have to work with, and we have some guys who really want it. And we’re not there yet. We’re slowly but surely improving. And you’d be a fool to look at our team and say we’re not improving. That’s crazy. Especially with where we are defensively and what we’re capable of doing offensively.”
On how nice it was to see the defense pick up where it left off: “The goal was to come out there and get a stop. You wanna go three-and-out, you wanna go six-and-out, you wanna go something and just get off the darn field without relinquishing a score. That’s what you wanna do. Sometimes is does not work like that, but often times we would like it to. But they did not get down, and the whole theme of this week was what do you do when? What do you do when the defense gives up a first down? What do you do when you give up a sack? What do you do when you drop a pass? What do you do when you get called for holding? How do you respond? That was the whole theme of the week. How do we respond? We know that happened, let’s flush it. Now what do you do to respond?”
On LaVonta Bentley’s forced fumble and recovery: “Well, LaVonta Bentley first and foremost has been one of our key players in our defense. I mean this young man, he is football, man. When it comes to our defense and a hard nosed guy that’s doing it at practice week in and week out. One of the most touching moments that I’ve had since I’ve been the coach here at Colorado was — I usually go for a walk, me and a few other coaches afterwards — but before we left the field to go on our walk through campus and whatever, I saw LaVonta Bentley getting ready on the field, jogging with Big Q (Anquin Barnes). And I was like what’s wrong with you? I just gave you the second half of practice off because I know your foot is messed up, and your foot is hurting. You’re limping. He said ‘coach, I’ve gotta get the big fella ready.’ He’s jogging with this guy and he’s limping, because he’s sowing into his teammate trying to get him prepared and in shape to play this game. So you talk about a man who I love to life, he is one of those guys and I’m proud of him. Truly proud of him.”
On building confidence after a decisive victory: "It's important for our line to compete like they competed. It's important for our defense to have consistency and finally get sacks and finally get turnovers. It's important for Mata to regroup and go and make sure he can make that field goal. Now it's important for Mate [Vassett] to after he shank one, to come in and land one, and I think inside the five yard line. So it's important for these guys to have consistency, for Shedeur to come back and play the game that he played, and Travis is consistent as well. But a lot of those receivers chipped in today, and they did a phenomenal job with their targets that they had."
On Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi calling Travis Hunter too small: "How stupid is that? This is Travis Hunter. Dude this is Travis Hunter. This is Travis Hunter. Like, who does that? I wouldn't allow my kids to do that, and y'all know that, and that ought to be said. But when you allow kids to sit in an interview and talk against us, and you just got beat by 50 some in week one. Come on, dog, somebody help me. Here. Am I missing something? Straight up, tell me. I don't see where I don't see where that's done in sports that has to be allowed. Ain't nobody crazy enough to sit up there and say nothing like who does that? … Ain't no bear that's so durn, I can't say that word. Thank you, Jesus. God, you're so good to me. He's a dog. That's what I love. Y'all. Man, y'all take care of me."
On the offensive line: "They played well. I mean, they could play better, of course. But that that's that's not just saying Justin is not in the plans. That's not saying that we don't have several more young men in the plans, that we want to have a better rotation. We want to have a rotation going in of at least several players that can play at a high level and protect our quarterback. We really do incur and help us run the football successfully."
On the offensive balance: "Nobody cares about balance until you get your butt kicked. That's the only time you really care about balance. How many times we ran 19, I think 19 and we threw it 49 times. Come back. That's a little disparaging. That's a little different, right? Nobody cares about that until you get your butt kicked. When you get your butt kicked, that question come from you all like, ‘what about the balance?’ Ain't nobody care about no balance, long as you win the game. That's what people care about. We would love to build that tremendously, because we have backs that can do it. You know, fortunately, we put it on the ground one time today, and that's not indicative to who we are, but we'll, we'll fix that."
On the improved rushing attack: "Just the intensity and the understanding of our team that we need, this needs to happen. Pat [Shurmur] is a pro, so definitely he's calling runs. He wants to call runs. That's the life he comes from, with a lot more balance at the professional level. But these men in the front, they got to make up their mind is, this is what we're going to do, and we're not waffling. We're going to do it so, but it's hard when you got a Dern, you know guy like Shedeur, who a quick screen is five to seven yards, anything behind the line of scrimmage is caught or not more than five yards. To call this. That's just like a handoff, just like a long handoff, because he's so darn accurate."
On meeting the moment: "I'm truly proud. I mean coming down the street, we walked out the locker room, I heard how much we suck, you know, and I hate using that word and that terminology, but that was said, and all the profane and profanity that we were ushered into. These guys stood up. Come on, man, we can hear. We have ears, two of them, matter of fact, and we heard all the foolishness. And might as well abandon the darn season with one darn loss. You know, many people have lost one game in college football, some really good teams that lost one games. We like to think that we're one of them. Yes, we're developing some things. Yes, we're working on some things. But yeah, you see this arrow is headed in the right direction, especially defensively. And you know, everybody knows the formula. You protect two, you go, simple."
On Nikhai Hill-Green: "Believe he started last week too. I think he started last week as well. He comes to play. He's a student of the game. He plays very physical. I think he had some tremendous physical stops today as well. But he lines the guys up, get them going, and he's like a pro out there. He does a phenomenal job."
On the offensive line’s switch: "Well, their preparation, attention to detail. Did a lot more inside run this past week than we had done in previous weeks. They just didn't like what they heard. I mean, it's not kind for young men to hear how bad they are consistently. It's not kind, as coaches, we could get up on them as well, to confirm some things, to challenge them in some manners. But soon, you know, also, during the week, I said, alright, now it's time to build them up. It's time for us to build them back up so we could prepare them for this contest.
"And they shoot. They came to play from the first play on, they came to play. I'm so darn proud of them. You have no idea just seeing their eyes and how they lit up on that field when they were driving and driving and doing what they wanted to do. And I don't know how many times two got touched tonight, or did we even surrender a sack? I know he did a good job of running around trying to get rid of it. So that was phenomenal as well, phenomenal adjustments by pad and field and those guys in the offensive rooms."
Closing statement: "I just want you to have the same passion when you see foolish things that you have when you see things on our behalf. I'm not asking you to jump on anybody, because I don't condone that as well. But you know, I just just like balance in any part of life is wonderful."
