Coach Prime knows how to make an entrance, and his presence in sports is a bona fide provocative storyline. Enter week 1 for the Colorado Buffaloes under the regime of Prime & Sons and what you have is the making of a television ratings bonanza.
Last weekend, the Buffaloes debut of Coach Prime and Shedeur Sanders as gunslinger captivated college football faithful and casuals alike with the 45-42 upset of then-No. 17 TCU. It was the most-watched college football game in the country on Saturday, with 7.262 million viewers.
It was also the second-most-watched game of the opening weekend, second only to Florida State’s 45-24 defeat of LSU on Sunday to round out the weekend. That game drew 9.165 million viewers, but it was the only game at that time and featured two teams in the top eight going head to head.
That Prime New-New
It was all bad just a season ago when the Buffaloes went 1-11, with that sole win coming in week 6. Although Coach Prime is only one win in, hopes are high for Team Sanders, who is coming off a successful tenure at Jackson State University. While there, Deion and his son Shedeur blazed a trail that led to two SWAC championship wins and raised visibility for the HBCU sports spectrum.
Sanders’ current crop of young players are feeling the uplift.
“Yeah, it blows my mind because in a million years I’d have never imagined that I’d be in this situation,” Buffaloes receiver Jimmy Horn Jr., said to BuffZone. Horn caught 11 passes for 117 yards and had a touchdown during the game. “My coach always says, like, we was about 6 years old and we always dreamed of having this moment in our life. So I’m actually living my dreams, but I ain’t done yet.”
Ranking Don’t Have A Record
On Tuesday, The Associated Press Top 25 Poll was released, with Colorado breaking the Top 25, coming in at No. 22 and hitting the Coaches’ Poll at No. 25. The last time the Buffaloes went unranked in the preseason and then jumped into the Top 25 after week 1 was 20 years ago in 2003.
A program in desperate need of resuscitation received a complete ventilator in the services of Coach Prime. However, Sanders could care less about the rankings ahead of this Saturday’s Nebraska game.
“I don’t care what no one says about where we should be ranked,” Prime said postgame on Saturday. “I don’t care about no ranking. I care about how we practice tomorrow. That’s what I’m caring about right now. Ranking don’t have a record.”
While the world thought Russell Wilson’s move to the Denver Broncos would light up the Rockies, Coach Prime shows that college game day is his version of Prime Day.
