Deion Sanders once used an elevator ride to remind Isaac Wilson which jerseys to throw to. On Saturday, the ones on the other side will look awfully familiar.
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Wilson will start at quarterback Saturday night when No. 11 Utah comes to Boulder, the Buffaloes head coach said Tuesday at his weekly news conference. Wilson led the Utes in passing in 2024, with 1,510 yards and 10 touchdowns. In three games at Colorado, he has completed 40-of-71 passes for 443 yards.
“Isaac is always up to the task,” Sanders said. “This ain’t no different thing for Isaac.”
Sanders described a quarterback who doesn’t rattle. Wilson, a CU football student of the week, is “a fighter,” Sanders said, and “he don’t flinch.” That’s why the head coach can needle him. As Wilson stepped off an elevator they had been riding together, Sanders said, he told him, “Isaac, make sure we throw the ball to the guys on our team.” Wilson doesn’t take that kind of thing to heart, Sanders said.
Wilson threw 44 passes in the loss to Texas Tech on Oct. 3. If Sanders gets his way, he won’t be tasked with doing that again. Asked what he wants from his quarterbacks the rest of the way, Sanders said he’d like the Buffaloes to attempt “between 17 and 24” passes a game, depending on how it unfolds.
“We’re not great when we’re throwing the ball that much,” Sanders said. “I don’t know that too many teams are. We can run the ball. We’ve proven that.”
Through five games, Colorado has averaged 36.2 pass attempts per contest and 140.8 rushing yards per outing. Utah’s defense allows 78.8 rushing yards per game at 2.9 yards a carry.
Sanders said his offensive linemen have taken responsibility of getting the ground game back to what it was in the first three weeks. The Buffaloes (2-3, 0-2 Big 12) host Utah (5-0, 2-0) at 8:15 p.m. MT Saturday on ESPN.
Sanders isn’t planning on a change at offensive play-caller, either. Asked whether he had considered the the move, he pointed to execution instead.
“We’re good. We’re good. We’ve just got to get productivity,” Sanders said. “I can hear the play going in, and I know what’s supposed to happen.”
Behind Wilson, Sanders said, each quarterback brings something different. Kaneal Sweetwyne is a threat with his legs. Julian Lewis, who leads the team with 733 passing yards, is “not really a runner, but he can throw the heck out of the ball.”
Sanders also brushed off a report, which surfaced online before the Texas Tech game, that a Colorado play script had leaked.
“That happens sometimes,” he said.
Whatever was out there, Colorado opened that game with a nine-play, 75-yard touchdown drive. “I guess it didn’t work,” Sanders said.
Sanders said he wouldn’t trust a leaked script from an opponent, either, since there would be no way to know whether it was a dummy.
“I don’t major on the minors,” he said. “Try to major on the major.”
Asked whether Colorado made any special teams changes over the bye week, Sanders pushed back on blaming the unit as a whole. Elliott Arnold is 3-of-6 on field goals. “Don’t indict the whole durned team,” Sanders said of a missed kick.
On punts, Sanders said the staff asked Damon Greaves for “a little more hang time so we can get down there and cover.” He said the timeout against Texas Tech, which Colorado’s field goal defense came out of with nine players, came from miscommunication that sent two players to the bench. Texas Tech missed the 51-yard try that followed. Sanders called the issues in the punt return game the work of the returner and said it had been handled.
“It’s not schematic,” he said.
The bye week, Sanders said, went to situational football and substitutions, down to tracking which players share a jersey number, since two players wearing the same number can’t be on the field at once. He confirmed that receiver Quanell Farrakhan Jr. is switching to No. 5. Farrakhan and Sweetwyne have both worn No. 14.
With Sweetwyne as the third-string quarterback, Sanders said, the two rarely would have been on the field together, but Farrakhan has worked his way into more reps, so Colorado didn’t want to take the chance.
On defense, Sanders said Colorado “can’t give up the fight” late in games and has to “stop the mindless penalties.” Asked whether forcing turnovers is the next step for a defense that has five takeaways in five games, Sanders said yes. He added that teams with big turnover totals are often playing from ahead.
“We’ve just got to score more, and you’re going to see a lot more aggression,” he said. “I promise you.”
Receiver Danny Scudero, who has played in two games, is “working his butt off to get back,” Sanders said, but he isn’t sure Scudero will be ready this week.
Utah runs for 238 yards per game, and two of its quarterbacks carry the ball. Devon Dampier has 206 rushing yards, and Byrd Ficklin has 150. Sanders said that keeps every defender on alert, even on the back side of the play, because the quarterback can always pull up and throw.
“These guys are good; they’re really good, and schematically they’re good,” Sanders said. “We feel like we’re up to the challenge and up to the task.”
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