BOULDER — When the bully across the road gives you a wedgie on national TV, the neighbors start to worry. Get beat by little brother? The neighbors start to talk.
“I would say (CU Buffs coach) Deion Sanders needs (Saturday) more,” CBS analyst and former NFL lineman Ross Tucker, who’s in the booth for Saturday’s Rocky Mountain Showdown at Fort Collins, told me by phone earlier this week. “The reason why I say that is when things started to go south (in 2023), they really went south. (CU) did not show the ability to really handle and overcome adversity very well.
“So based on how last year went, if you’re a CU fan or if you’re a Deion fan, you see back-to-back losses to Nebraska and to CSU, two of the four teams you beat last year, you’ve got to think about how well they’ll be able to keep the team together and in a good headspace for the rest of the season. … (It’s) not even, ‘Here we go again.’ It’s, ‘These are actually two of the teams we beat last year, so we’re going in the wrong direction.’”