The Centennial Cup is staying in Boulder as head coach Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes left Colorado State in the dust on Saturday evening, 28-9.
Obviously, it was a much-needed victory for the Buffs, who lost by a similar score to fellow rival Nebraska the week prior. Against the Rams, Colorado was once again led by quarterback Shedeur Sanders and two-way star Travis Hunter, but we also saw strong performances from true freshman running back Micah Welch and linebacker Nikhai Hill-Green.
Colorado is now 2-1 with its first Big 12 game against Baylor next week.
Here are some of Coach Prime’s best quotes following Colorado’s bounce-back performance in Fort Collins:
Opening thoughts
“Wonderful game, personal game, heartfelt game, emotional game. They (CSU) kind of make it like that. We just want to play some football The disrespect was uncalled for throughout the week. A couple of players took shots at the whole program and few of our players.”
On keeping Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter in the game up big
“We want to score. The game is about scoring, isn’t it? I don’t know protocol. You should have called me and told me to put off. As long as the other team’s trying to score, we trying to score.”
On Micah Welch’s strong game
“It does a lot for his confidence. The kid was playing in high school this time last year. Now he’s playing on one of the largest stages in college football.”
On Colorado’s strong defensive performance
“These guys, they want it. No one’s satisfied with their performance. I think we finally got a darn sack. We finally got a turnover. We finally got a couple of picks, which was satisfying. These guys played a game. They worked their butts off in practice. They worked their butts off studying film.”
On Colorado responding to adversity
“The whole theme of the week was what did you do when? What did you do when the defense gives up the first down? What do you do when you miss a sack? What do you do when we drop a pass? What do you do when you get called for holding? How do you respond?”
Praise for LaVonta Bentley
“LaVonta Bentley, first and foremost, has been one of our key players on our defense. This young man, he is football. When it comes to our defense and our hard-nosed guys doing it at practice week in and week out.”
On building off the win
“It’s important for our lines to compete like they compete. It’s important for our defense to have consistency. We finally get sacks, we finally get turnovers.”
On CSU QB Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi taunting Travis Hunter
“This is Travis Hunter. Who does that? I wouldn’t allow my kids to do that, and y’all know that, and that’s already said.”
For greater context, here’s what happened.
On the new-look offensive line
“They played well. I think they could play better, of course. That’s not just saying it’s not in the plans. It’s not saying that we don’t have several more young men in the plan that we want to have a better rotation. We want to have a rotation going in of at least several players that can play at a high level and protect their quarterback.”
On the offensive balance
“Nobody cares about balance until you get your butt kicked. That’s the only time you really care about balance. How many times we ran? Nineteen and we threw it 40 times.”
On Colorado’s improved rushing attack
“The intensity and the understanding of our team that this needs to happen. Pat (Shurmur) is a pro, so he’s calling runs. He wants to call runs. That’s the life he comes from with a lot more battles at the professional level. But these men in the front, they gotta make up their mind that this is what we’re going to do.”
On Nikhai Hill-Green
“He comes to play. He’s a student of the game. He plays very physical. I think he had some tremendous physical stops today as well. He lines the guys up, gets them going. He’s like a pro out there.”
This article originally appeared on Buffaloes Wire: Deion Sanders speaks on Colorado’s needed Rocky Mountain Showdown victory
