One-sided loss to Nebraska is a painful reminder of Colorado's problems in the trenches

Deion Sanders is used to doing things that are considered conventionally impossible.

Play in the NFL and MLB on the same day? Sure, he can do that. Become the best cornerback of all time? Done. Win as a head coach with no college or high school experience? Yep. He did that at Jackson State.

But he can't challenge every convention. He's found that out in Colorado, where the Buffaloes still can't keep up despite having an incredible quarterback and a ton of talented players. The most recent example is a 28-10 loss to Nebraska.

The main reason for this? The Buffaloes are simply not good enough up front.

Colorado's offensive line has been under scrutiny since Sanders arrived on campus. It's often a verbal punching bag, even for the head coach, who frequently has to watch his son, the star quarterback, take punch after punch.

It happened again against the Huskers.

Nebraska had four sacks by halftime and finished the win over the Buffs with six (plus 10 tackles for loss) in a dominating performance in the trenches. The Buffaloes finished the game with an average of 0.7 yards per carry. Things didn't go much better on defense for Colorado, where the Huskers averaged 4.3 yards per carry. yards per carry and held true freshman QB Dylan Raiola clean without allowing a sack.

It wouldn't matter if Shedeur Sanders turned into an airbender (they can literally float in the air), you can't be consistently successful at that position without having good blocks in front of you. Nebraska, a defense that gets very creative when pressured, made life difficult for Shedeur.

There were hints that this could happen in Week 1 against North Dakota State. The Buffaloes managed 445 passing yards, but against an FCS team they managed just 2.6 yards per carry. And while Sanders was only sacked once, he was pressured on seven dropbacks.

Mind you, these fights are not surprising.

Colorado is trying to buck convention by bringing in five new offensive linemen this season and expecting them to play together right away. The best lines usually have several starts together to learn how to flow and communicate. Colorado put everyone together in the spring and hoped it would all click together quickly.

That formula rarely, if ever, works in college football. And no one has taken it as far as Deion Sanders, who has signed over 50 new players in each of the last two offseasons.

Not everything can be attributed to Colorado's weaknesses in the scrimmage. Colorado lost the ball more often than Nebraska, had problems in the red zone and received penalties. Shedeur Sanders, an excellent quarterback, is also not innocent. He takes almost three seconds to throw the ball on every dropback; last season he was the 24th slowest player in the FBS among players who made 50% of their team's dropbacks.

But Colorado's problems on Saturday are actually easy to explain: They were put under pressure up front by a team with much more continuity. And that's despite the fact that Matt Rhule and Deion Sanders started their jobs at the same time in the 2023 offseason.

Deion Sanders ignores the norm and creates his own in many areas of life. But there is no getting around the fact that in football, the team that wins on the front lines usually wins.