After a 2024 season highlighted by strong performances from Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter, the Colorado Buffaloes began their 2025 Big 12 campaign with a narrow loss to Georgia Tech, falling 27-20 at home. The defeat was notable for Colorado’s struggles on both offense and defense, particularly during the debut of quarterback Kaidon Salter.
Despite Georgia Tech turning over the ball three times early in the game, Colorado’s offense, led by Salter, converted those opportunities into just seven points. Salter finished with 159 passing yards and 43 rushing yards on 13 carries.
Michael Irvin publicly commented on Salter’s debut performance during his YouTube channel broadcast. Irvin said: “The quarterback, God bless him, I know it was his first game, and there might have been some nerves… Great feet, he knows how to move around, but he missed a lot of people easily. I know a lot of people were thinking, ‘If that was Shedeur, they would have won that game.’ Deion has to get his quarterback in better places, and playing better,” according to Irvin.
While offensive issues were clear for the Buffaloes during Salter’s first start after transferring from Liberty University, defensive problems also played a role in the defeat. Colorado allowed Georgia Tech to rush for 320 yards on 47 carries and score three touchdowns.
Head coach Deion Sanders commented postgame about his team’s defensive showing: “It’s hard to applaud the defense when we gave up darn near 500 yards, man. That’s kind of tough. It’s a great question. I tried my best to answer it as politely as I could, but it’s hard to applaud the defense right now (…). You’re not going to win with those statistics. We tried many things. We tried blitzing, we tried to fill every gap, but we didn’t get the job done. They were much more physical than we were. They were much more aggressive at times… There’s no way you can say you’re physical and you got your butt kicked like that,” Sanders said.
The departure of key players Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter continues to affect Colorado’s lineup as they confront new challenges in run defense entering this season.
