The Colorado Buffaloes football team opened their season with a 27-20 loss to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, showing areas of both strength and weakness. Head coach Deion Sanders commented on his team’s performance, noting positives in their effort and challenges on defense.
Sanders highlighted his players’ determination and physical play. “They didn’t quit whatsoever,” Sanders said. “They were physical. Offensively, when you’re seeing the linemen saying, ‘Coach, let’s do this. Let’s run the ball. Let’s run it down their throats.’ I’m hooking my guy. I’m killing the guy. That’s the kind of verbiage that you hear. The receivers wanted to eat as well. So I love a lot of those things that I saw.”
The Buffaloes ran for 146 yards during the game, led by running back Micah Welch with 64 yards and quarterback Kaidon Salter adding 43 yards in his first Power Four start. However, no wide receiver recorded more than two catches.
Defensively, Colorado struggled against Georgia Tech quarterback Haynes King, who ran for 156 yards and scored three touchdowns as the Buffaloes allowed a total of 463 yards. Sanders addressed these defensive lapses following the game: “Defensively, we got to clean up all that (…) We just got gashed for 463 yards. Their quarterback (King) is looking like a Heisman candidate right now. We made that happen for him. We got to do a better job collectively defensively on neutralizing opposing teams’ running game And when they take shots, we can’t get a PI (pass interference). We got to do a better job with that as well.”
Linebacker Reginald Hughes recorded eleven tackles, DJ McKinney had an interception in the first quarter, and Martavius French recovered two fumbles for Colorado.
Looking ahead to matchups against Delaware, Houston and Wyoming, Sanders expressed confidence in his team’s ability to improve after their Week One loss: “I’m optimistic on everything (…) We’re definitely gonna be fine. I’m not concerned about that. And we could’ve won that game. It’s not like we got our butts kicked, like we could have won the game.”
The Buffaloes are preparing for their next contest against Delaware as they seek their first win of the season.
