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CU At The Game Podcast – Year One of the Coach Prime Era: Hits and Misses / Moving On: Charting Changes in the CU Coaching Staff and Roster
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Welcome to our first post-season podcast. I am joined for this episode by Neil Langland, and we are going to begin our journey into what promises to be another memorable off-season for the Colorado football program.
First, a note. We are going back to posting episodes every other week, with our next episode covering Signing Day. The Recruiting Class of 2024 will be signing their Letters of Intent on Wednesday, December 20th, with our podcast taking a deep dive into the Class being posted that Friday.
We will open this podcast with a review of Year One of the Coach Prime era. It’s hard to believe the impact Deion Sanders has had on the CU athletic department, the City of Boulder, and upon college football as a whole, but it’s worth taking a few moments to look back at what the Buff Nation has … compared to what might have been.
Quick quiz: Which is the most unbelievable factoid from Year One of the Coach Prime era?
•That CU sold out every home game for the first time in school history (not to mention the Spring Game)?;
•That CU, after a 1-11 season, was nationally ranked in September?; or
•That more viewers watched the Rocky Mountain Showdown (with a 10:30 p.m., ET kickoff) than watched the prime time Pac-12 championship game between two top five programs in Oregon and Washington?
After our short trip down memory lane, we turn our attention to the reshaping of the coaching staff and roster, with a look ahead to how Signing Day might influence CU’s won/loss record next fall.
So … Was the loss of offensive coordinator Sean Lewis, with his “most likely” replacement being Pat Shurmur, a net loss or a net gain for the program? … If Coach Prime brings in well-known names, like Warren Sapp and Brian Leftwich, who have no collegiate coaching experience, will that help or hurt the development of the roster? … And … Are there enough quality offensive and defensive line transfers out there, who can be counted upon to turn CU’s front lines into strengths instead of weaknesses?
Let’s find out …
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Most recent CU at the Game Podcast episodes …
- Crystal Ball: Game-by-Game Predictions for CU’s 2023 Season
- “T.I.P.S.” for CU at No. 17 TCU – The Debut of the Coach Prime Era at CU
- “T.I.P.S.” for CU v. Nebraska – Plus: Savoring the Huge win over TCU
- “T.I.P.S.” for No. 19 CU at No. 10 Oregon / Recapping CU’s 43-35 win over CSU
- “T.I.P.S.” for the White Out Breakfast with No. 8 USC
- “T.I.P.S.” for CU at Arizona State / Taking Positives from the 48-41 loss to No. 8 USC“
- T.I.P.S.” for CU v. Stanford /Review of CU’s 27-24 win over Arizona State
- “T.I.P.S.” for CU at No. 23 UCLA / Mid-season Report Card for the 4-3 Buffs
- “T.I.P.S.” for CU v. No. 16 Oregon State / Post-Mortem on CU at No. 23 UCLA
- “T.I.P.S.” for CU v. No. 23 Arizona – Can the Buffs Bring Home a Win on Senior Day?
- “T.I.P.S.” for CU at Washington State: The Battle for Win No. 5
- “T.I.P.S.” for CU at Utah: The Buffs Look to Finish the 2023 Campaign on a High Note
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Below is Episode 31 of Season 4 for the CU at the Game Podcast. You can listen to the podcast simply by clicking on the play button below, or listen to it at Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio … or wherever you find your podcasts!
One Reply to “CUATG Podcast – Year One Under Coach Prime / Charting Coaching and Roster Moves”
Hey guys,
Great podcast as always. Appreciate the thoughts and insight. I agree that other than the Stanford loss the season went along our lines of expectation. Like you both stated, that one was rough. I have not done an in depth look at the season yet, I just wanted to enjoy the season as it was and figured that could wait until the off season but I have a couple of thoughts I would opine on.
1. Last season, I believe coach prime thought he could get by without an NIL recruiting program. I believe he has changed his approach.
2. I think they missed on a whole bunch of kids last year. I think the top half were very solid, but the lack of depth hurt very bad. When Tyler Brown could not play, the back up guards were no where near ready. We had one adequate linebacker and it was so bad we brought a safety down. Cornerback was thin as Cormani was just not ready to play yet, when Cooper went down we suffered badly. I think this is what the pundits expected and what previous podcasts you had thought there might be a problem with. How do you restock an entire team? The results are what we found, without massive NIL you cannot, even with Coach Prime.
So we will not be rebuilding the whole team this year and it appears we have real NIL money coming in (at least enough to get a couple of bright stars). Our talent level was clearly up last year, that trend should continue.
I thought overall coaching was solid. I am glad OB is gone, just my eyes on the frame without film think the line regressed from the previous year. Linebacker play was bad. The fact that they brought a safety down to help was interesting. Woods was passable but his reads were slow and he was not physical enough at the point of attack (it seems odd to say this but he was not, part of being a linebacker is compressing the hole and pushing against 300 pound o lineman. He would get engaged and get bullied.). Where did the kid from Alabama go? What the hell happened to the kid from ASU?
I am still not sure about the running back coach either. We still rotate too much.
Neither of those coaches are going somewhere anytime soon. So let’s see how they do next year.
On Shurmur, I can’t say I disagree with your thoughts. I am not sure I would take Leftwich over him though, Tom Brady makes everyone look great. We scored more points per game on average with Shurmur in charge against the PAC12 than with Lewis, at least I believe I saw that stat somewhere. And it was against 2 ranked teams and Utah.
Overall, I am excited like you both. Should be a fun ride.