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Woody Paige: Can Prime and Payton lead their teams to the playoffs this year?

By Woody Paige February 17, 2024 | updated 1 year ago

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Colorado Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders walks out onto the field before a game against the Stanford Cardinals on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023, at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colo. (Timothy Hurst/Denver Gazette)

Timothy Hurst/Denver Gazette

Coach Prime and Coach Payton separately cut pretentious, promotional swaths through Las Vegas before the Super Bowl. Astonishingly they did not collide on radio row, at the lavish parties, in the casinos and during dinner at Delilah. Deion brought his quarterback with him; Sean doesn’t know who his quarterback is. 

But can P and P reach the NFL and the NCAA playoffs this year or even championship games in New Orleans and Atlanta? 

Oddly enough, the early odds for the Broncos to win the Super Bowl and the Buffaloes to win the college football national title are exactly the same in Vegas – 10,000 to 1. 

The premature over-under win total for the Buffs (who have six home games and six road games) is 5.5 and for the Broncos (who have eight home games and nine road games) is 8. 

Good luck and Godspeed, guys. 

Perhaps they should consider opening a steakhouse called Payton & Prime. 

Moving to the new-and-expanded Big 12 Conference, Colorado will confront seven teams that played in bowls last season. The Broncos, still in the same old-and-difficult AFC West, will play in six games against 2023 postseason teams, including, of course, the mighty Chiefs twice and the Ravens in Baltimore, where once is enough. 

Payton has not made a bold prediction for next season; Coach Prime is pledging Playoff Time. 

“We plan on being one of the teams’’ in the 12-team national playoffs, he announced on national TV. 

The Buffs started 3-0 in Sanders’ inaugural season and squandered efforts in eight of their last nine. They obviously will have to win more than the projected 5½ games and finish 10-2 or 11-1 to have a chance even if Coach Positive Prime proclaims CU is “Box Office.’’ 

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How about victories over two Texas teams and a couple vs. schools in Kansas, and a pair against programs in Utah and Nebraska? It has been suggested the closest the Buffaloes will get to a bowl atmosphere is when they travel to Orlando to challenge Central Florida. “We’re going to Disney World,’’ C.P. will say if CU prevails. 

Nobody, though, can accuse Sanders of being a shrinking violet or a Cheiranthus (wallflower). 

He has remade Colorado football again, bringing in two dozen more portal process players and seven prep prospects. The Buffs already are at the mandatory 85-man roster. 

Spring practice begins in Boulder in just one month from Sunday. 

But before, Coach Prime already has programmed a Buffest, or Woodstock West, around the Black and Gold Day spring intrasquad game. Last year tickets to Folsom Field sold out quickly, and a record crowd of 47,277 showed up for Coach Prime’s coming-out party. ESPN chose Colorado for its only college spring game telecast. 

This year multiple networks with initials (MTV, A&E, C-SPAN?) likely will cover the celebration. Deion said in Las Vegas on the Lil’ Wayne podcast that the “Prime Weekend’’ will be comprised of a Thursday night fashion show, a booster bonanza Friday, a concert of musical performers (Lil’ Wayne and Big Head Todd and The Monsters?) for students and alumni Saturday and, yes, there will be modified game, too, Saturday, April 27. 

Sanders is not standing pat. Well, except for Pat Shurmur, formerly of the Broncos who now has CU’s official offensive coordinator’s title, and Robert Livingston (not the signer of the Declaration of Independence) was hired as defensive coordinator. Two other assistants have been added, but nobody seems sure about Warren Sapp’s deal or no deal. 

Shedeur Sanders returns for one more season as the quarterback, and he will earn more than anyone else in college football and several NFL quarterbacks with NIL guarantees totaling above $5 million. He is rumored to be on the cover of the EA Sports NCAA Football 25 video game and could be the No. 1 quarterback pick in the NFL Draft next year. 

He and brother Shilo bought dad a house for luring an entirely new offensive line to CU to protect “Sad-Sacked Shed’’ Sanders. The elder Sanders also concentrated on defensive linemen and edge rushers in recruiting 24 portable portals. The Buffs lost 16 players who transferred. 

Coach Prime is beaming in Boulder while 43 miles away at Dove Valley Coach Payton is beginning “sooner than later’’. 

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