Deion Sanders defends Pat Shurmur, takes blame for Week 1 loss

Deion Sanders and Colorado’s coaching staff took some criticism after week one with its opening loss to Georgia Tech. That said, Coach Prime says all of that is on him as head coach of the Buffaloes.

During his press conference this week, the first question to Sanders was about OC Pat Shurmur, with some concerns about the offense after the 27-20 loss to the Yellow Jackets back on Friday. He thought it was interesting that his first question would be about Colorado’s offense over its defense, with the Buffs giving up 27 points and 463 total yards to GT.

“It’s funny that you start out with Coach Shurmur. We gave up over 300 yards, darn near 400 yards rushing,” Sanders noted. “It’s ironic to me. It seems like you guys just pick and choose who you want to target, and that’s cool.”

However, that’s not saying anything about DC Robert Livingston either. At the end of the day, Sanders says everything as far as the loss is on him when it comes to his staff or his team being ready to play.

“We didn’t lose the game because of Coach Shurmur, Coach Livingston, or one specific thing,” Sanders siad. “I got to do a better job in preparing my team, challenging my coaches to go to the next level. That’s on me.”

Considering all things, especially with all the changes to the unit, Colorado didn’t have a bad night on offense. The Buffs had a balanced effort with the 305 yards that the Buffaloes put up, with 159 passing yards and a touchdown from Kaidon Salter.

Colorado also got 146 rushing yards with the efforts from Micah Welch as well as Salter, with a touchdown on the ground for him as well. It’s just some conservative calls came into question, with the Buffs finishing at 4.9 yards per play, as well as clock management late, as they tried to attempt a game-tying drive with just over a minute to go.

Sanders defends controversial clock management in final minute vs. Georgia Tech

Sanders defended some controversial clock management at the end of Colorado’s 27-20 loss to Georgia Tech. The Buffaloes had 1:07 on the clock for their final drive, but could not get past midfield as time expired on the possession. Sanders didn’t utilize timeouts despite having them at his disposal, but he referenced incompletions and getting out of bounds as reasons why he didn’t take them on the drive.

“I think we got out of bounds a couple times, so we didn’t have to take them,” Sanders said. “That’s what transpired, we got out of bounds, I think, on both sidelines … We caught the ball, I think, for nine yards. We got one yard to go. So if you get the first down, the clock stops, so it don’t make sense to really use your time out in that sense. 

“So we were just really trying to preserve them til we certainly needed them. So, I mean, I don’t want to go home with timeouts. They don’t do me no good. But you got to be strategic. as well just burning timeouts just to burn them just so you guys won’t say nothing, that don’t make sense at all. But I think we got out of bounds a couple times … and we had incompletions.”