31 touchdowns, 3200+ yards covered, and a 69% completion rate. If you call this a bad season, then every American QB out there would want to have this same bad season. Shedeur was a solid pick back in 2023. While the Buffs did end the year with a 4-8 score, this was still a 400% improvement over the previous year’s 1-11. When Coach Prime got his hands on the team, the Buffaloes had nothing. Now it’s more than $200 million in value and has the potential No.1 QB Shedeur Sanders and the best player in college football Travis Hunter. And no matter what you say, NFL Analyst Daniel Jeremiah put it perfectly, “Sanders has the foundation in place to develop into a solid NFL starter.”
However, there is just one glaring issue that even Deion Sanders had admitted in an interview with ESPN after the 2023 season was over: Shedeur’s defense. On August 2nd, ESPN’s Jordan Reid put out quite a detailed scouting review on Shedeur Sanders. “Sanders was sacked on 9.8% of his dropbacks last season, the ninth-highest rate in the FBS,” Reid mentioned in his report. It is true. Because of the lack of proper defense on the team and Shedeur’s general lack of knowledge in regards to surviving in the pocket, he went on to become the most sacked QB in 2023. Even Jeremiah had pointed this out in his scouting report from July. “Sanders’ tendency to never give in and hold the ball results in far too many sacks,” he had noted. Sanders has an amazing ability to drive the ball downwards, which paired with his accuracy makes him a formidable opponent.
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However, he focuses too much on never giving up. That relentless pursuit ends up getting him exhausted. As Reid also mentions, “he seemed to press to make plays too often.” At the end of the day, these mistakes have major consequences on his NFL draft options. While Reid mentions in his report that most scouts look at Shedeur as a first-tier passer in the 2025 class, he still gotta work on the areas he is lacking. The good news is that Deion Sanders has finally realized this problem and has started working on changing the Buffs.
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Big change
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Andy Staples from On3 explained it perfectly back on August 1st. “This offseason has revamped that offense into something that is closer to what he would like to run,” Staples had mentioned. Deion Sanders has completely changed the O-line of the team. With 6 new players added to the roster, the main goal for this season would be to protect Shedeur inside the pocket.
Just like Aaron Torrest put it on his podcast, “People are going to be surprised.” The Buffs now have a whole new offense, along with that, Coach Prime has also brought in Will Sheppard to act as the X-receiver for the team. All that aside, even Shedeur has shown massive improvements. Uncle Neely had mentioned how the boys have shown an increase in accuracy. Going from 60% to 70-80%. Let’s hope this year the Buffs finally manage to redeem themselves.