© Rob Gray-Imagn Images
You don’t have to look back very far to find a time when the Colorado Buffaloes were the most popular thing in college football. But fast forward three years, and one look at the Buffs’ spring game attendance paints a very different story.
Colorado hired Deion Sanders prior to the 2023 season, and the hype was immediate. Sanders, paired with his son Shedeur and two-way superstar Travis Hunter, was supposed to turn the ailing Buffaloes product around.
And the results were immediate, at least when it came to off-the-field hype. Colorado sold over 30,000 tickets to its spring game in 2023 after giving away the same amount for free in the seven years combined.
After a huge season-opening win on the road at TCU, which was coming off a national championship game appearance, it seemed as if Sanders would deliver on the field as well.
But the Buffs faltered down the stretch, going just 4-8 in his second season.
Year two was a bit better, as Colorado went 9-4 and narrowly missed out on the Big 12 championship game. Hunter won the school’s second Heisman Trophy, and Shedeur Sanders won the Johnny Unitas Award as the nation’s top upperclassman quarterback.
Both then left for the NFL, however, and the Buffaloes stumbled to a brutal 3-9 record in 2025, with just one win in conference play.
That falter, coupled with Sanders’ unique staff composition, has soured a number of fans on both the coach and the program.
Nobody Showed Up To Colorado’s 2026 Spring Game
Over the weekend, the Buffaloes held their annual spring game at Folsom Field, but the crowd turnout was significantly different from what it was three years prior. Photos comparing the two games showed just how bad things have gotten in only a few short years.
Colorado Spring Football
How it started (2023) vs How it’s going (2026) pic.twitter.com/lWiSJmiJBi
— Brad Powers (@BradPowers7) April 13, 2026
But despite his troubles on the field and ongoing health issues away from it, Sanders is confident he can turn things back around.
“We’re going to make it better,” he told reporters after the game. “We already have with the staff as well as the players that are inside the locker room. I love it. I love that everyday grind of it.
“Things definitely are, I’m not going to say 100%, but things are tremendously better on the field as well with the staff.”
Perhaps he’s right. But for the sake of the Colorado program and Sanders’ job security, he’d better hope that he is.