CU Buffs QB Shedeur Sanders deserves Heisman Trophy love

BOULDER – Shedeur Sander's flu under the radar. Alter practiced for a day last week. One. Before it went viral, #2 felt viral.

“It was tough out there trying to get the chemistry back between everyone,” the CU Buffs QB1 said early Sunday morning after overcoming the flu and throwing for 323 yards in a 34-23 win over Cincinnati. “Because you lose weight, you lose strength, you lose a lot of things.”

Don't touch. Not zip. Don't feel. No mojo. Shedeur completed his first 15 passes. In one half. Against a good Cincinnati team. Against a Bearcats defense that allowed 19 completions for Texas Tech across an entire game last month.

Sanders threw 30 times that night. He completed 25, with two touchdowns through the air and another on the ground. From a sick guy who was back on his feet at the end of the third quarter.

Travis Hunter weighs 185 pounds. I mean, he's recording so much Spot on your Heisman Trophy ballot? Really?

“You're not going to put two players on the same team,” Sanders, son of second-year CU coach Deion Sanders, mused, shrugging when asked if he and Hunter tied for each other's Heisman chewed candidacies.

“Me and Trav, (we) just take care of it. That’s not how it’s going to happen…so it is what it is. I don't really care about it that much. Of course I just want Travis to win. And it will almost be like I won. Because I threw him the ball.”

With that, Shedeur smiled. Even the most cynical writers in the room had to laugh.

“Travis, he is hands down the best player in college football,” Son of Prime continued. “And I’m happy for him to win it. And it really is – it will make my day.”

When ESPN.com asked 14 employees to participate in a midseason Heisman poll on Oct. 15, Shedeur didn't receive a single vote.

Boise State tailback Ashton Jeanty led the mock field with 11 first-place hits, followed by Hunter (three), Miami QB Cam Ward, Oregon QB Dillon Gabriel and Indiana QB Kurtis Rourke.

It's up to Jeanty to lose, especially because his Broncos aren't going to lose – with UNLV out of the way, there's no Mountain West/2-Pac team left on the roster that Boise can't beat.

Rourke and coach Curt Cignetti's Hoosiers are all real, but the former is broken. Additionally, the Crimson and Cream defeated Washington this past weekend without the services of their aforementioned QB.

Gabriel scored 18 points with five picks; Sanders threw 21 with six. Ward has beaten four teams with winning records; Sanders struck out three. Oh, and he was thrown for an average of 359.3 yards in those games with a 10-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

By the way, 15 for 15 to start a game is a new CU school record, edging Joel Klatt and Steven Montez's 12 consecutive completions into second place.

Another day of practice. One.

What is that? Still no space?

“Wow, wow, wow,” Deion Sanders said after his Buffs secured bowl eligibility against Cincy, moving to 6-2 and 4-1 in the Big 12 while also beating BYU, Iowa State and Kansas State remained in the hunt for the championship title. “And they don’t even mention him as a Heisman? He's not even mentioned? Oh, my mistake. He is my son. For this reason.”

That's not it. Hunter's unicorn narrative is honestly the bigger problem, because it sucks up the oxygen on the ballot that Jeanty hasn't yet devoured.

Although that is no excuse for the voters either. At all. Since 2004, teammates have finished in the top five in Heisman voting seven times and four times since 2016. The last teammates to finish in the top three in the same Heisman voting cycle came in 2020, when Alabama's DeVonta Smith (No. 1) and Mac Jones (No. 3) led a very Tide-focused group of finalists to. The last two to finish in the top 6 in the same year were Bama's Bryce Young (No. 1) and Will Anderson Jr. (No. 5) in 2021.

You can understand some of the national backlash against CU football. Coach Prime has upset just about every sacred cow in the college game, from recruiting to NIL deals to sponsorships to hiring to media access. Like the Oakland Raiders of old, his Buffs are brash and bold, fast and furious, and don't care what you or I think. And that will never be the case.

But any backlash against Shedeur is clearly Looney Tunes.

Consider: In a season and a half as the Buffs' starter, he has as many wins (10) as CU won total in 2019 (five), 2021 (four) and 2022 (one). On the Buffs' career charts, his 48 CU TD passes since 2023 trail only Sefo Liufau (60), Steven Montez (63) and Cody Hawkins (63), all of whom piled up their numbers over multiple games.

Are you looking for a man who combines great abilities with diligence, perseverance and hard work? Go back and watch No. 2 try to run the CU offense after suffering what looked like an ankle injury near the end of the third stanza, a blow that caused him to noticeably miss between plays limped. But in the final 21 minutes of the second half, Sanders still had enough power to complete four of five throws for 64 yards and get the Buffs over the line.

“(I’m) a little broken,” Shedeur admitted Sunday. “But we won, so everything will feel a little better. Secure.”