Keeler: CU Buffs’ 3-9 record proves Deion Sanders needs better coaches in his ear or another Shedeur on the field

He’s an NFL general manager cosplaying as a college football coach. Deion Sanders can see the big picture better than most of us, clear as day. He needs a game-manager on the field, a Shedeur Sanders to be his eyes and ears between the hash marks.

He needs a game-manager on the headset. Nick Saban had Steve Sarkisian. And Lane Kiffin. And Bill O’Brien. And Jim McElwain. Coach Prime has Pencil Pat Shurmur and Bret Bartolone. You get what you pay for.

Although the Buffs just paid their coach $10 million to go 3-9 this fall, which is the kind of ROI that tends to get athletic directors canned. At the least, it forces said $10-million coach to line up sacrificial lambs on his own staff before harder, and more expensive, decisions get forced upon him.

“I played this game and I know this game like the back of my hand and I love this game and all the ins and outs and ups and downs,” Coach Prime told reporters after his Buffs scrapped away at Kansas State but ultimately fell, 24-14, closing out Year 3 of the Sanders Era with five straight defeats. “I’m built for every last (part) of it. But if anybody’s built to reconcile and get this back on course, it’s me. I will do it if it’s the last thing I do on Earth.”

Somewhere, Dan Lanning had to be chuckling at that one.

We’ve heard this all before. And, yes, CU has rebounded from the ashes before, too. The Big 12 is a league of middleweights and fine margins. Which means, in terms of talent/personnel, the Buffs really aren’t that far away.

It’s just that when you fall just short week after week, the mental stuff starts building in the back of your head the way tartar piles up along the gum line. The doubt creeps. The questions linger.

On one hand, the Buffs were in four one-score games this year. On the other, they lost three of them.

Under Sanders, the Buffs are 6-10 in games decided by 10 points or fewer. He’s now 1-5 in those games without Shedeur Sanders as his QB1. He’s 3-10 at CU with someone other than his son as the starting signal-caller.

A starting NFL QB (Shedeur), a generational athlete (Travis Hunter) and a slew of pro-level targets (LaJohntay Wester, Will Sheppard) can mask an awful lot of coaching blemishes.

Take that away, though, and you get … well, 3-9. And a second 1-8 league mark over the last three seasons.

Can Sanders chase nine wins again? Sure. And then he’ll go 4-8 or 3-9 the season after that and start the cycle all over again. Down. Up. Down. Up.

For The Prime Method — building the core of a roster around transfers — to work consistently requires significantly better talent than your peers, significantly better coaching or significantly more money to pay for that better talent and coaching.

Sanders needs Alabama’s gravitas or Texas Tech’s sugar daddies. The Buffs have neither, so this is what you get. When the transfers hit (2024), the ship takes off. When Kaidon Salter has to save your season (2025), buckle up.

Although CU had a solid enough plan for Kansas State (6-6) — run Salter in the snow and see if that unlocked anything. The Buffs kept it on the ground in miserable conditions over nine of their first 11 plays. Just like in the script.

In the fourth quarter of a game they trailed 10-7, CU threw it nine times and ran it eight. K-State, meanwhile, went into business mode, just as Arizona State did at Folsom Field the weekend before. Of the Wildcats’ 206 rushing yards on the day, 98 came over the final stanza.

In the meantime, though, K-State tried to give CU the game, didn’t they? The Buffs just struggled to step up and take the darn thing.

Just like they struggled to tackle. Like they struggled get to get a field goal or a punt off in the snow globe that was Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

There will be a lot of soul-searching, a lot of social posts, a lot of hot takes as to what went wrong with Coach Prime’s third campaign.

Landing a 5-star prep QB in Julian Lewis was the fun part, but the next trick is developing him. While the in-game progress from April to November has been tangible and real, the jury’s still deliberating. When it was clear from the spring that more time was needed, Salter became the “bridge” guy. Only it turned out to be a bridge to nowhere.

This much is clear as day, especially after K-State: Whomever gets to run the offense in 2026 would be wise to feature more of junior wide receiver Omarion Miller, who torched the Wildcats to the tune of seven catches for 120 receiving yards despite swirling winds.

Miller through his first 10 games had collected 23 first downs on his first 37 catches, or one every 1.6 grabs. Point of comparison: Last fall, Travis Hunter had 51 first downs on 96 grabs — one every 1.88 receptions. LaJohntay Wester: 46 on 74 grabs — a first down every 1.6.

And while Coach Prime looked miserable out there, at least his team brought their snow pants early. With nothing to play for but pride, the Buffs came out in the spirit of what Sanders had promised in the summer — angry on the ground, relentless at the line of scrimmage.

Over the first half, the chuck-and-duck Buffs outrushed Kansas State 84-59 in the Wildcats’ backyard. CU went into the break with more first downs converted (10-5) and, maybe more impressively, having committed zero penalties to K-State’s three.

Meanwhile, a Wildcat team that ran for 427 yards against Utah was stuck at 67 on the ground halfway through the third stanza. Alas, with former Erie star Blake Barnett sprinkling in designed QB runs to spell an inconsistent Avery Johnson, the hosts salted a chilly game away on the ground late.

Once K-State wrestled back control of the clock, the Buffs couldn’t buy a stop. Or a salve. Coach Prime needed another voice — a voice from the coaches’ box or, like Shedeur, a voice from the huddle.

In the end, CU had two timeouts left over the final 45 seconds, down 10. Sanders didn’t use either. Like most Buffs fans, he was ready to turn the page and go home. The next chapter is setting up to be the one that defines CU’s experiment and a legend’s legacy. For better or for worse.