Apr 27, 2024; Boulder, CO, USA; Colorado Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders during a spring game event at Folsom Field.
Deion Sanders and the Colorado football team opened fall camp on Monday ahead of what’s expected to be an exciting 2024 season.
After going 1-8 in the Pac-12 (4-8 overall) a year ago, the Buffaloes have been picked to finish 11th in the Big 12 Conference by media members.
None of that means anything to Sanders and his football team, though. The Buffaloes expect to compete in 2024.
“We don’t have tomorrow,” Sanders told his team on Sunday for report day, according to a video posted on CU football’s X account. “We don’t have the next day or next year. We have now. I mean, right now.”
Colorado’s season opener vs. North Dakota State is exactly a month from today (Thursday, Aug. 29) and preparations have already begun.
Here are three takeaways from the Buffs’ first preseason practice of 2024.
‘This year we have depth’
The Colorado running back room is, in some ways, a microcosm of the entire team.
Each of the Buffs’ four leading rushers from last season (Dylan Edwards, Anthony Hankerson, Sy’veon Wilkerson, Alton McCaskill) hit the transfer portal, leaving Colorado running backs coach Gary Harrell with a new-look unit.
Charlie Offerdahl is the lone returner at that position and Sanders recently said at Big 12 media days on July 10 that the former walk-on-turned-scholarship-player is “the starter at this point.”
But will Offerdahl be able to hold off a pair of transfers (Dallan Hayden, Isaiah Augustave) and true freshmen (Micah Welch, Brandon Hood) for the starting nod?
The Buffaloes’ running back competition will be fascinating to watch unfold once the pads come on in camp.
“One thing is, this year we have depth,” Harrell said after practice on Monday. “Charlie is a walk-on who’s going to have an opportunity to show what…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/takeaways-colorado-footballs-first-preseason-203308262.html
Author : The Coloradoan
Publish date : 2024-07-29 20:33:08
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
