Colorado football coach Deion Sanders told his players after a damaging loss to Kansas on Saturday that they started liking the scent of their success too much and ended up ‘intoxicated’ from it.
The question now for the Buffaloes (8-3) is if they can sober up in time to win the Big 12 Conference championship. It’s still mathematically possible, but they no longer control their own destiny after a 37-21 loss at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.
‘We started smelling ourselves a little bit,’ Sanders said in his postgame news conference. ‘That’s what I just told our team. We got intoxicated with the success. We got intoxicated with the multitude of articles and the assumption that we’re this and the assumption that we’re that. And we did not play CU football. Therefore, we got our butts kicked.’
The Buffs finish the regular season Friday at home against Oklahoma State. They entered the day just two wins away from getting a berth in the Big 12 championship game Dec. 7. But now they are in a four-way tie for first place in the Big 12 with BYU, Arizona State and Iowa State, each with a 6-2 record in league play.
Who will win the Big 12 tiebreakers?
It depends on how those teams do next week. If all four teams win or if it’s a three-way tie for first with BYU, Colorado and Arizona State, Colorado would not make it. That’s because the key tiebreaker would be those teams’ record against common conference opponents.
The four first-place teams have four common Big 12 opponents: Kansas, Kansas State, Utah and Central Florida. Arizona State is 4-0 against those teams. BYU is 3-1. Colorado is 2-2. Iowa State is 2-1 and hosts Kansas State next week.
In the end, it might doom Colorado that it lost to both Kansas and Kansas State this season. Arizona State has beaten both and BYU is 1-1 against them. Iowa State lost to Kansas but could beat Kansas State to finish the regular season.
‘We controlled our own destiny,’ Sanders said. ‘And we fumbled it.’
But if Colorado wins next week and two of those other first-place teams don’t, the Buffs would get into the Big 12 title game. BYU finishes the regular season at home against Houston while Arizona State plays at Arizona.
What about Colorado’s playoff chances?
Colorado is 16th in the College Football Playoff rankings but will drop in the next rankings released Tuesday.
Even if the Buffs still get into the Big 12 title game and win it, this loss hurts their playoff standing because only the five highest-ranked conference champions get automatic playoff berths in the 12-team field. The other seven berths go to at-large teams based on their ranking.
A Big 12 champion with three losses might not rank higher than the champs of five other leagues – the American Athletic, Mountain West, Atlantic Coast, Big Ten and Southeastern Conferences. For example, No. 19 Army or No. 20 Tulane could win the AAC and outrank a Big 12 champ with three losses. League leaders from the four other leagues already outrank Big 12 rankings leaders BYU and Colorado.
How did Colorado lose against Kansas?
The Buffs fell into a 17-0 hole and didn’t recover. Kansas scored on each of its first seven possessions: four touchdowns from senior running back Devin Neal and three field goals from Tabor Allen.
‘They didn’t punt, man,’ Sanders said.
That’s true. The Jayhawks (5-6) never punted and now have beaten three ranked teams in a row, the first time in major college football history that a team with a losing records has done that.
Neal had 207 rushing yards and 80 receiving yards. Kansas also possessed the ball for 40:11, compared to 19:49 for Colorado.
‘We all genuinely messed up,’ Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders said. Shedeur finished 23-of-29 passing for 266 yards and three touchdowns, including two caught by Travis Hunter, the two-way star. Hunter had eight catches for 125 yards on offense and seven tackles with a pass breakup on defense.
‘I noticed that we’re slow out of the box,’ Shedeur Sanders said. ‘We’re finding different ways to get going fast.’
It’s not too late for that if they can find a solution. Even if they don’t land in the Big 12 title game or the playoff, the Buffs will play in a bowl game, possibly the Holiday or Alamo Bowls Dec. 27 or 28.
Deion Sanders is now 12-11 in two seasons after finishing 4-8 in his first season in Boulder. The Buffs were 1-11 the season before he arrived and hadn’t won this many games in a season since 2016, when they finished in the Alamo Bowl with a 10-4 record.
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
(This story was updated to add new information.)