Believe it or not, the Colorado Buffaloes‘ turnaround from 1-11 in 2022 to 9-4 and a bowl game in 2024 was the easy part for head coach Deion Sanders. What comes next is much tougher, and will really prove whether he is an elite coach in NCAA football.
The 2025 Colorado Buffaloes will look very different. An open quarterback race to replace Shedeur Sanders is underway, and there really is no way to replace the two-way contributions of Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter with only one player. Maintaining a quick-fire aerial attack philosophy on offense will be difficult…but Deion appears to have been prepared for this possibility.
Colorado is intent on establishing the run in 2025
Last month, Sanders promoted Gunnar White to the coveted role of offensive line coach. White, who worked as a quality control analyst at Colorado before the promotion, already worked with Sanders at Jackson State University and has earned Coach Prime‘s trust.
White is hard at work already in transforming a group that wasn’t always able to keep Shedeur Sanders clean in the pocket — or upright, given the number of sacks he took or just narrowly avoided. Speaking to the media this week, White revealed what a post-Shedeur era at Colorado is going to look like: the Buffs are going to run the ball, a “non-negotiable” in accordance with White’s vision for the group.
“We have to run the ball, and the team has to depend on the offensive line this year for us to be successful,” White said.
Colorado averaged only 65.2 rushing yards per game in 2024, and the Buffs were one of just two teams in the 134-team FBS not to crack 1,000 yards on the ground as a team. With Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter no longer in the picture, Coach Prime and his staff are well aware that they will have to win differently in 2025.
The stakes are as clear for White as they are for Sanders: either Colorado adapts, or risks falling back into irrelevance.
“Five equals one with O-line, like you can’t just have one guy doing his own thing,” White said. “You got to have all five of your guys doing the same thing at the same time, and they’re really buying into that.”
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