Colorado opens Sept. 3 at Georgia Tech in a Thursday night ESPN window. The eight months since the last snap explain why the Big 12’s beat writers put the Buffs 15th out of 16.
BOULDER — The last time Colorado played a football game, it lost 42-21 at Folsom Field to Arizona State and finished 3-9.
Then the NFL draft came and went across seven rounds without a Buff hearing his name.
Six signed as free agents afterward. Anquin Barnes Jr. to the Giants, Sincere Brown to the Chargers, Xavier Hill to the Jets, Preston Hodge to Jacksonville, Arden Walker to Minnesota. Kaidon Salter took a minicamp invite from Tennessee and wound up with the BC Lions.
That is the baseline the 2026 schedule lands on.
Who left
Jordan Seaton went to LSU. He was rated the second-best player in the entire transfer portal, and he was Colorado’s left tackle.
Omarion Miller went to Arizona State after 808 receiving yards and eight touchdowns. Tawfiq Byard, who led the team with 79 tackles, went to Texas A&M. DJ McKinney went to Notre Dame. Dallan Hayden went to Memphis. Dre’Lon Miller went to Baylor.
Deion Sanders replaced them the same way he assembled them. Danny Scudero arrives from San Jose State with 1,291 receiving yards. DeAndre Moore Jr. and linebacker Liona Lefau come from Texas. Safety Boo Carter comes from Tennessee, tackle Bo Hughley from Georgia, center Demetrius Hunter from Houston, running back Richard Young from Alabama. Roughly seven offensive linemen and a dozen defensive linemen came in behind them.
The staff turned over too. Brennan Marion runs the offense after coming from Sacramento State with his Go-Go scheme. Chris Marve, promoted from linebackers coach, runs the defense. Pat Shurmur is gone, Robert Livingston went to the Broncos and Marshall Faulk left to be the head coach at Southern.
Sanders is in year four on a $54 million extension with a declining buyout, which is its own conversation.
Who throws it
Julian Lewis is a redshirt freshman who threw for 589 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions in limited work last season, and he is the presumptive starter. Sanders hasn’t said so out loud. Isaac Wilson, the Utah transfer, is behind him.
An 18-year-old former five-star running a first-year coordinator’s offense is a reasonable bet in the abstract. Behind an offensive line whose two-deep is almost entirely players who were somewhere else in January, it is a harder one.
That is the piece of this that isn’t a matter of opinion. Colorado lost the second-rated player in the portal off the left side and rebuilt the room from scratch. Line continuity is the thing that takes longest to arrive and the thing a young quarterback needs first. Whatever the Buffs are in November, September is going to be loud and fast and mostly unblocked.
The schedule
Non-conference is three games. Georgia Tech on the road Thursday, Sept. 3 at 6 p.m. on ESPN, a standalone national window and the first look at everything above. Weber State at home Sept. 12. Northwestern on the road Sept. 19. A bye follows the opener, which is unusual and useful.
Then nine Big 12 games.
At Baylor Sept. 26. Texas Tech at home Oct. 3 for homecoming, and Texas Tech is the defending league champion and No. 12 in the Coaches Poll. Bye Oct. 10. Utah at home Oct. 17, No. 21, and the Utes have won 12 of the last 15 in the series. At Oklahoma State Oct. 24. Kansas State at home Oct. 31.
November: at Arizona State Nov. 7, which is Omarion Miller’s return game. Houston at home Friday, Nov. 13 at 8:15 p.m. on ESPN, No. 24, and a rematch of the loss that opened last season. At Cincinnati Nov. 21. UCF at home Nov. 28.
Eight of the twelve kickoff times are still unannounced. That isn’t an oversight. The Big 12 sets most windows on a six- or 12-day trigger, so the October and November slate won’t be scheduled until the season tells the networks which games matter.
What the room thinks
The Big 12 stopped running an official preseason media poll after 2024. The two unofficial versions in circulation both have Colorado 15th of 16, ahead of only Iowa State, with Texas Tech first in both.
The Coaches Poll came out Aug. 4 and Colorado is not in it and not receiving votes. Four Big 12 teams are: Texas Tech at 12, BYU at 15, Utah at 21, Houston at 24. Three of those four are on the schedule and two of them come to Folsom.
The Vegas win total is 4.5, the lowest in the conference.
The AP preseason Top 25 lands Monday. Nothing circulating before then is the actual poll.
Either way, it’s an uphill climb for the Buffs, and it all begins in Atlanta in just under three weeks.
