For Deion, Hunter and CU, a solid season, some fingers crossed and thoughts of what might have been

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — In the days before the playoffs became the goal in college football, and before people started choosing sides on whether Deion Sanders is good or bad for the sport, there wouldn’t have been much to pick apart about Colorado football this year.

Its 2024 season has been a very good one.

With Travis Hunter practically grabbing the Heisman off the trophy stand, the 23rd-ranked Buffs (9-3) finished the regular season Friday with a 52-0 demolition of Oklahoma State. They’ll finish with at least five more wins than the season before.

In a few weeks, Hunter, the receiver-cornerback who had an interception, three touchdown catches and 116 yards on 10 receptions, figures to become CU’s second Heisman winner. The coach’s son, Shedeur, threw for 438 yards and five touchdowns and now holds the school’s single-season records in both.

A program that was irrelevant before those guys arrived will, at worst, head to a bowl game people have heard of — maybe the Holiday or Alamo — and they’ll go to bed Friday night with an outside chance of playing for the Big 12 title.

“We’ve exceeded all expectations, and I’m really happy where we are,” said Deion Sanders, whose team’s loss to Kansas last week put a dent in its playoff hopes. “We certainly wanted to take that one extra step last week. We fell short, but look how we rebounded. Look how we wiped away the tears and rebounded.”

There was more good news delivered before the regular-season finale began: Four more high-profile recruits announced they’d be joining five-star quarterback Julian Lewis in Boulder next season.

All this underscores the fact that, for the most part, the coach was right. Last September, after a 42-6 drubbing at Oregon put doubt in the minds of even the most ardent Sanders fans, the coach himself set the stakes: “You better get me now,” he said that day. “This is the worst we’re going to be.”

CU has been on a steady upward climb

They have been far from perfect since Sanders said that, but he was right.

After a sometimes-hard-to-watch ending to last season — who can forget the blown 29-0 lead against Stanford? — then a shaky start to this one, CU has won five of six. Most of those have looked a lot like what transpired in the morning chill at Folsom Field on Black Friday.

CU dismantled an overmatched opponent. Shedeur Sanders was solid, and did nothing to tamp down his first-round draft expectations.

The headliner, Hunter, further bolstered his Heisman resume, with a performance that had to leave the Jim Thorpe Award panelists, who did not name him a finalist in the race to be declared the nation’s best defensive back, wondering if they can have a do-over.

So, how is this team not making the playoffs?

It was the kind of performance that made it hard not to think CU could maybe win a game in the new, 12-team playoff. It made it hard not to drift into the land of “what might have been.”

A mere week ago, CU controlled its own future. Three wins in three games and the Buffs would have brought their coach, their stars and a big dose of glitz and glam straight to the college playoff.

Instead, their return to the Big 12 this season closes with a footnote that no Buffs fan over, say, the age of 40 can fully embrace: No CU season that includes losses to Nebraska and both teams from Kansas, the way this one did, will ever be an unqualified success.

The third loss — 37-21 to the Jayhawks last week in a game Sanders said went sideways because the Buffs “got intoxicated by the success” — might have been a dream-ender.

Now, to make the Big 12 title game, Colorado will need a host of unlikely things to happen Saturday — namely, losses from at least two of the trio of BYU, Arizona State and Iowa State, all of whom are favored.

If the Buffs back in to the title game and win, then it’s playoff time — a jackpot for Buffs fans, for playoff rightsholder ESPN and for anyone who wants a bit of drama and personality to go with their football over the holidays.

If there’s no playoff, a bowl game awaits

More likely is that the Buffs headline the most-watched Holiday (or Alamo) Bowl ever, Hunter starts working on his Heisman acceptance speech, and then the waiting game begins to see whether the coach will follow him and his sons out of town.

It is, to be sure, an existential, angst-filled discussion in Boulder. But all current signs — including Sanders’ recent declaration that he’s got the ”kickstand down” here in the Rocky Mountains — say he stays.

The early national signing period, a vastly reimagined exercise in the NIL era that Deion is helping define, is set for Wednesday.

At CU, that means Lewis, top-10 defensive end prospect London Merritt and three other “name” newcomers will lock in their deals.

If they’re as good as advertised — no sure thing — then CU can expect the national attention to keep flowing. even if players like Hunter and Shedeur turn out to be the sort of players who only save a program once in a generation.

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