DENVER (AP) — Deion Sanders sauntered into the Arrow Touchdown Club for what felt more like an old-fashioned tent revival than a news conference to introduce the University of Colorado’s splashy new hire of “Coach Prime” as its new head football coach.
At that very moment Sunday afternoon, the Denver Broncos were predictably blowing another late lead in their death spiral under Nathaniel Hackett and Russell Wilson, who this time couldn’t even reach the red zone much less the end zone in a 10-9 loss at Baltimore.
Folsom Field has been college football’s wasteland for the better part of this century but a perfect storm has brewed over Boulder that could allow the Buffaloes to turn things around overnight from a 1-11 team that was one of the worst in the nation to a relevant program again.
The NCAA now allows athletes to cash in on their exploits and transfer schools without having to sit out a season. And the university has relaxed its stringent credit transfer regulations while creating a pool of donations to parcel out to players.
Combine that with the home run hire of Sanders and Colorado can suddenly compete with traditional powerhouses in luring five-star recruits and prominent players in the transfer portal.
Suddenly it’s cool to be at Colorado, and with Coach Prime’s arrival, the Buffs have swiped the buzz that the Broncos have owned in the Centennial State for decades.
Now, it’s the Broncos who are at the bottom of the barrel in the NFL. At 3-9, they’ve lost 13 of their last 16, the franchise’s worst such stretch since the 1970 merger.
It was the state’s professional football team and not its flagship university that had all the buzz this spring.
When the Buffs were embarking on a season that would see them win just one game and fire their head football coach Karl Dorrell midseason, the Broncos were boasting about their acquisition of Wilson, a Super Bowl-winning quarterback supposedy still in his prime at 33, whom they would reward with a contract extension before the season that was worth just shy of a quarter billion dollars.
Broncos fans were thrilled that the team’s new owners were members of the wealthiest family in America. Walmart heir Rob Walton, the oldest child of Walmart co-founder Sam Walton, bought the Broncos along with his daughter, Carrie Walton Penner, and her husband, Greg Penner, for $4.65 billion, a global record for a professional sports franchise.
Suddenly, the NFL’s wealthiest owners by a mile were in the Mile High City.
Things were looking up in Denver, where Hackett was plucked off the Packers staff to replace Vic Fangio.
But things took a bad turn from the start, when Hackett settled for a Brandon McManus 64-yard field-goal attempt in Wilson’s horrible homecoming at Seattle in the season opener.
McManus missed, just as he did Sunday when he came up short on a 63-yarder at Baltimore, leaving the Broncos still without a win on American soil since Sept. 25.
Wilson has thrown just eight touchdowns in 11 starts and the Broncos have reached the end zone three times since Halloween.
Detroit Lions running back Jamaal Williams has as many touchdowns himself — 14 — as the entire Broncos roster this season.
