Shedeur Sanders should call out his dad, not his offensive line after Colorado loss

The Colorado Buffaloes' first season with Deion Sanders on the sideline was a movie. Maybe not the best movie, but it sure was entertaining.

The Buffs started red-hot out of the gate before slumping down the stretch, ending the season out of bowl contention in a dying Pac-12. Now Colorado has upgraded to the Big 12, but the roster remains deeply flawed.

After narrowly outlasting FCS North Dakota State in Week 1, Colorado was stomped by rival Nebraska in their second game of the season. True freshman QB Dylan Raiola put together an impressive all-around performance en route to the Cornhuskers' 28-10 victory. Colorado, on the other hand, suffered a particularly uneven outing from Shedeur Sanders.

The projected top-five pick completed 23-of-38 passes for 244 yards with a touchdown and an interception. He was, of course, under constant pressure due to the sorry state of Colorado's offensive line, a problem that plagued the program throughout last season.

Rather than taking accountability after the game, however, Sanders opted to throw his teammates under the bus. He even tried to discredit Raiola, citing the quality of Nebraska's O-line and the cleanliness of Raiola's pocket when compared to Sanders' operational circumstances with the Buffs.

Shedeur Sanders throws O-line under the bus after Colorado gets stomped by Nebraska

Look, Shedeur is somewhat correct on the surface. Colorado's offensive line is a mess, which makes it far more difficult for him to efficiently run the offense. There's a reason Sanders is so highly touted on 2025 NFL Draft boards. He's a major talent and scouts are able to see immense promise through all the noise.

That said, this is plain bad leadership. The best QB prospects are generally positive influences in the locker room. Sanders has shown very little self-awareness when commenting about his teammates, often parroting his father's errant narratives. Deion has cultivated, for lack of a better term, a toxic culture around the Colorado program. He is decimating the confidence of certain recruits and even pushing them into the transfer portal.

We all remember this...

Rather than talking down to teammates and shedding all responsibility for the Buffs' offensive shortcomings, Sanders should do what we've seen from the best QBs over the years. He should operate as a sponge for criticism — willfully absorbing negative comments and promising improvement, promising better leadership on the sideline and in the game. Instead, Sanders has opted to deflect, deflect, and deflect some more. It's hard to handle adversity if you're not willing to face it head-on.

If anybody really deserves heat for the state of Colorado's O-line, it's Deion. He talks a big game on the recruitment front. Again, this is the dude who tells his "mid" players to hit the portal because Colorado only wants the best of the best.

Well, Colorado is a bad team. They clearly don't have the best of the best. If you're going to flaunt your excellence as flagrantly as the Buffs, you should probably make sure your team is of a certain quality. Deion has his positive traits as a coach and Shedeur is unambiguously a major talent at the QB position. That said, if the Buffs can't cultivate a better culture — until leaders in the clubhouse start uplifting teammates, rather than talking down to them — we shouldn't expect Colorado to take the next step.

Name value and general profitability will probably keep Coach Prime in Boulder for a while, but he's starting to feel the heat beneath his seat. Colorado generates far too much buzz for such a middling team. Both Deion and his son shoulder some of the blame for that.