It's Nicole’s first college football game and she wants to know if it's always like this. It is fair to say that no ma’am, it most certainly is not. There is no doubt who everyone is here to see. Fans flanking a team’s entrance into the stadium is nothing new, but it’s not usually the home team’s fans queued up to get a glimpse of the road team’s head coach.
Her brother-in-law bought the tickets as the shocking TCU-Colorado game in Week 1 came to a close and it became apparent the Buffaloes had something going on. He was panicking as the tickets vanished out of his online shopping cart but they got them in the end. They drove down from Olympia, Wash., just to see the game. They stood next to a man in a Coach Prime sweatshirt and a young boy who had also driven up from Washington. The chance to see a childhood idol couldn’t be passed up, and the boy wasn’t the one who said that.
From the two guys in the throwback Falcons No. 21 jerseys to the man in the stands wearing the vintage Cowboys T-shirt, and the woman in the gold pom-pom seated right behind Colorado’s bench chanting, “Coach Prime,” the main draw was clear. It’s not often the student section at Oregon is full 30 minutes before a 12:30 local time kick. But they were there even earlier to greet Sanders as he took the field about an hour before the game. Even Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens, front and center, couldn’t help but express some amazement.
This is just going to be the dynamic for as long as Deion Sanders does this. The target on Colorado’s back is not on a player or a talented unit on a talented team, it’s on him. In the end, after Colorado’s 42-6 evisceration at the hands of the Ducks, Sanders summed things up clearly.
“Teams are trying to beat me,” Sanders said. “They’re not trying to beat our team. They keep forgetting I’m not playing anymore. I had a great career. I got a gold jacket I ain’t buy, so I’m good. But that’s what it really is. I don’t think they get any extra satisfaction, you know? It is what it is. And I signed up for it so let’s go.”
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Maybe lesser teams get too wrapped up in Sanders-mania and lose their heads and not play the opponent correctly, but it is abundantly clear Oregon entered this game with the intent to send a message to the college football world. Well, consider it received, whether it was intended for the head coach or not.
Before the game, Oregon head coach Dan Lanning told his team in the locker room:
"The Cinderella story's over. They're fighting for clicks, we're fighting for wins. There's a difference. This game ain't gonna be played in Hollywood. It's played on the grass."
(Of course, word got back to Sanders. He said his “messengers” informed him about what Lanning said before the game.)
They didn’t have to wait until midnight. What had been done by halftime was more than enough to prove their point. Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders took the final snap of the first half under center, and took a knee. It’s called the victory formation when it happens as time expires and the winning team is showing mercy. In this context, it was a concession.
You will seldom see a more comprehensive performance in one half of football than what Oregon did in the opening stanza. The teams went into the break with Oregon leading 35-0. The only drive Oregon didn’t score on was a Bo Nix interception. Oregon had another get stymied inside their own 20-yard line but surprisingly faked a punt, a nod to how stiff they viewed their competition to truly be (read: not at all). CU registered 0.9 yards per play on 24 plays, with 21 total yards and 2-for-7 on third down. The kneel down by Sanders was not the only time he moved backwards after taking the snap, as four first-half sacks saw drives get killed by Sanders making bad plays worse by dropping back deep behind his line of scrimmage.
"We're not done yet. We're not satisfied. I hope everyone that's been watching [Colorado] every week is still watching,” Lanning said to ESPN as he went into the locker room at the half.
After the game, Shedeur admitted he was holding the ball too long and couldn’t keep taking crippling sacks. Oregon’s touchdown to go up 42-0 came on a fourth-and-goal. Mercy field goals didn’t exist. The Ducks passed on another fourth down in the red zone as well. Backups finally came in the game in the fourth quarter to see the game out. Shedeur’s dad didn’t hide from the result either.
“That was a really good old fashioned butt kicking,” Sanders said. “We went into the game wanting to dominate several phases. We lost offensively, defensively as well as special teams … hats off to their coaching staff and their head coach, great job and they’re truly prepared.”
Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK
Oregon was putting on a show for what ended up being the sixth-largest crowd in school history. As time ticked down, and the fans behind the CU bench jeered—asking the younger Sanders “where’s your Rolex”—the quarterback looked toward the video board. Instead of just one “player of the game” Oregon did something unusual: the PA system said the entire defense was the player of the game, and played highlights of each of Oregon’s seven sacks of Sanders as the game neared the end.
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It’s not often Oregon—the team that wore color-shifting cleats on this day—gets to play the blue collar role. But the chip was placed firmly on Oregon’s shoulder by the untold amounts of hype around this Colorado program so far this season. Oregon somehow came in as an understudy, and reminded us all they deserved the leading role. It’s no secret in coaching circles that there’s more than a little professional jealousy for the attention paid to Sanders without much in the way of actual success, even with Colorado’s impressive 3-0 start. Lanning exuded some of that in his pre- and mid-game comments.
“One thing that I can say, honestly and candidly, you gotta get me right now,” Sanders said. “This is the worst we’re gonna be. You gotta get me right now.”
It never rains in Autzen Stadium, as they like to say around Eugene, but chants of “overrated” came down like a torrential downpour for what seemed like the entire afternoon. There may have been many here solely to see Sanders, but what they actually ended up seeing was how far away Prime Time’s team really is from being ready for prime time.
