Colorado held a 24-23 halftime lead at Oklahoma State on Saturday night, then watched the Cowboys outscore the Buffaloes 34-0 the rest of the way in a 57-24 rout. The fifth consecutive loss left Colorado at 2-5 overall and 0-4 in the Big 12, alone in last place in the conference.
The slide did not begin this season. Colorado has not won a Big 12 game since Oct. 11, 2025, when it beat No. 22 Iowa State 24-17 at Folsom Field. Nine straight conference losses have followed, starting at Utah on Oct. 25, 2025, and the Buffaloes are 2-10 over their last 12 games.
Many of those defeats were lopsided. Six of the 10 losses came by at least 20 points: 53-7 at Utah, 52-17 to Arizona, 42-17 to Arizona State, 41-7 at Northwestern, 29-7 to Texas Tech and now 57-24 at Oklahoma State. Only two came by single digits. The 57 points are the most Colorado has allowed in Deion Sanders' four seasons, and no Big 12 team has scored more against an FBS opponent this year.
Long losing streaks have become a pattern under Sanders. This is the third time the Buffaloes have lost at least five in a row during his tenure. His first team started 4-2 in 2023 and lost its last six, and last year's team finished with five straight defeats.
Penalties remain a problem as well. Colorado led the Big 12 with 100 penalties in 2024, and it was flagged 11 more times in Stillwater, eight of them after halftime. Its 66 penalties through seven games are again the most in the league, compared with 68 over 12 games last season. The team's scoring numbers look much the same as a year ago: 20.1 points per game, last in the conference, while allowing 30.1, second-most. Last season's team averaged 20.9 and allowed 30.5.
Expectations were high when Colorado gave Sanders a five-year, $54 million extension in March 2025. The deal runs through 2029 and pays him $10 million in base and supplemental salary this season. Then-athletic director Rick George said it would keep Sanders in Boulder "to compete for conference and national championships in the years to come." Colorado is 5-14 since.
Sanders did not point to schemes when asked what it would take to keep players going. "They've got to want it for the university, and they've got to want it for themselves," he said. He added that players are being compensated, so they should give everything they have, and that the program's message has shifted toward each player being "the best college football player that you could possibly be." He would not assign blame for Saturday. "We're not blaming nobody, man," he said. "That's a team effort and defeat."
Players echoed the frustration. Receiver Joseph Williams said he did not know why the results keep repeating, adding that "we ain't putting it together right now." Linebacker Gideon Lampron said the team is still "striving to put one together" and called last week "an incredible week of practice." He said: "Without a doubt, we're going to respond."
The path to a six-win season is steep. Colorado needs four wins in its final five games, double its total over the past calendar year, and every remaining opponent has a winning record: Kansas State (4-3), Arizona State (4-3), Houston (6-2), Cincinnati (5-2) and UCF (4-3).
Kansas State comes first, at noon Saturday at Folsom Field on TNT. The Wildcats are coming off a 28-17 loss at Arizona State that dropped them to 1-3 in the Big 12, but they have won the last two meetings, 31-28 in Boulder in 2024 and 24-14 in Manhattan in last year's finale. They were the league's least penalized team last season and are again, with 27 flags through seven games, 39 fewer than Colorado. Lampron said, "It's going to turn around eventually for us."
