Deion Sanders admits the moment felt too big at times in Colorado's loss to BYU
Deion Sanders admitted the moment felt a little too big at times during Colorado’s 24-21 loss to BYU Saturday night. It was a missed opportunity for the Buffaloes against a top 25 team at home.
Colorado led 14-10 at halftime but couldn’t muster the same success in the second half. The lowlight of the game came when Kaidon Salter took a 22-yard loss on a sack with less than a minute to go in the game, virtually ending Colorado’s hopes.
Sanders mentioned that the team didn’t capitalize on opportunities throughout the game and fell to 2-3. They are what they are right now.
“Tough fought game,” Sanders said postgame. “I can’t say I’m highly upset, I’m upset with a few things, but sometimes when it seems like you have more talent, but you didn’t quite win the game, it makes it feel somewhat awkward. We had opportunities, a tremendous amount of opportunities, but nevertheless, we didn’t cash in on it. And sometimes it felt like the moment was just too big for some of our athletes. And they got to do something about that.
“At halftime, we challenged certain positions to go out there and up their game, challenge their opponents. We didn’t get that. We got the same thing that we had in the first half. We gotta do better as a staff, as a team, and I’ve got to do better. Let’s go.”
Sanders was asked if they could fix the mental part of the game, in regards to the moment being too big. It’s not an overnight solution though.
“We can try but they have to step up,” Sanders said. “I am not going to make excuses for them. They have to step up. I don’t know what else I can say about it. They are prepared, they are studying film, same thing that we saw on the scout team, the same plays they ran tonight. It was a great scouting output for the staff. We just have to step up and make the plays that were there. We had tremendous opportunities to make the plays that were there. We just didn’t.”
Colorado has to travel to TCU next week, another opportunity to get right for Sanders and crew. But they still have ranked opponents Iowa State (14) and Arizona State (25) left on the schedule. Right now, the Buffaloes are looking for ways to scrape together six wins and get back to the postseason.
