ATLANTA — Deion Sanders landed an absolute gem as his defensive coordinator. So why won’t he find a budding star to run his wefense?
“Wefense,” by the way, is what new calls the Buffs’ special teams units. Officially, that side of the ball is Niblett’s side hustle. Sanders elected to split special teams coordinator duties for 2026 among several staffers, including Niblett, rather than dedicating one desk where the buck stops.
Technically, Coach Prime’s not ignoring or downplaying that side of the ball. But let’s just say the special teams results from Thursday’s wild, wacky 14-13 win at Georgia Tech sure looked that way.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Boo Carter. Blocked kick. Won the game. Awesome burst, Boo-tiful play. But should we just forget the 59 minutes prior to that? Should we act like it never even happened?
Because what happened was all over the darn place. In a tilt featuring a couple of raw, shaky young QBs, the Buffs and Yellow Jackets combined for just 17 points over the first 57 minutes before piling up 10 points, back and forth like a pickleball match, over the final three. Carter kept , who is to older brother Fernando what , from having the last word.
Yet that didn’t paper over an evening’s worth of cracks on the special teams front. Carter’s block swatted away three massive Tech points off the board as time expired. CU also left at least 10 special-teams points on the field.
The Buffs’ first kickoff of 2026 got run back 100 yards for a house call. Earlier in the evening, Carter fielded a fair-catch punt inside his own 5-yard line. At least two members of the punt coverage team let a Damon Greaves rainbow at the 2-ish yard line land in front of them and then bounce over their heads and into the end zone for a touchback. Greaves’ first punt of the tilt flew for just 21 yards, allegedly because of contact that wasn’t called.
You’d hand the special teams a grade of “B” or “B-minus,” given everything, but that letter was trending more toward a “D-plus” before Carter stole the show.
“Made some mistakes on special teams,” Sanders said after the game. “It’s effort.”
It might also be staffing.. And Notre Dame. And Texas.
In fact, the college football programs ranked in the Associated Press Top 10 going into Labor Day Weekend all have an assigned “special teams coordinator” on their coaching staff.
The Buffs don’t. The only person with “special teams” listed in his job title on the CU athletics website is Jacob Heavers, a graduate assistant.
CU’s staff roster makes for an interesting read. Three offensive line coaches. Assistant LB coach. Nickelback coach. Five offensive analysts. Five defensive analysts. No dedicated special teams boss. So it’s not as if CU can’t afford it.
And when it comes to that staff, let’s also give out some flowers where they’re due. For all the paragraphs dedicated to offensive coordinator Brennan Marion and his Go-Go scheme, it was Sanders’ defensive play-caller, Chris Marve, who put a larger stamp on Week 1.
The Buffs held a Power-4 opponent under 60 rushing yards for just the third time in the Coach Prime Era. A Sanders CU team won a game, and on the road, while scoring under 18 points — which is something Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter can’t say about their time in BoCo.
Marve’s guys got bent from time to time, especially in the first quarter, but they rarely broke. Tech’s offense managed just 17 first downs and was held without a touchdown. The Ramblin’ Wreck’s only trip to the end zone came via a kickoff return.
Which brings us back to the point.
Can you imagine what this team might look like if Coach Prime secured a Marve for his special teams?
“When you look at the statistics,” Sanders reflected, “you’ve got to get on the plane happy.”
True, but the Jackets might also stink. We walked away from Georgia Tech’s visit to Folsom at this time a year ago lamenting Sanders’ clock management and Pat Shurmur’s offense, both of which became running themes during a lost 3-9 campaign. Yet we also marveled at Tech QB Haynes King, a strong, stubborn son of a biscuit who ran like Tim Tebow, and seemed to be about the same age (39).
Mendoza flashed some escapability Thursday, but he’s no King. And Tech ain’t last year’s 9-4 bunch, either. The hosts came off slow, sloppy and unprepared. The former had a lot to do with CU’s speed along the perimeter, granted. But the latter was head-scratching from a Brent Key team. At one point, a Jackets blocker ran late onto the field during an extra point and appeared to jump over a live snap as it whizzed past him.
For most of the game, CU was tighter. Cleaner. Big 12 ready, Big 12 fast. Take away Texas Tech’s oil barons and BYU’s cookie mafia, and the rest of the conference is packed pretty tightly. The margins — coaching stuff, game-management stuff, special-teams stuff– will start to add up.
To wit: In The Prime Era, CU’s played nine conference games decided by nine points or fewer. The Buffs went 1-8 in those contests.
Flip half of those, and you might be talking about a bowl team in 2023 and a College Football Playoff berth the year after that.
Given the choice, an ugly 1-0 beats the snot out of a pretty 0-1 any day of the week. For three quarters, CU fans were looking for the nearest exit. By the end of the night, from Buckhead to Boulder, they were dancing in the streets.
The Buffs may not be as small as they looked in the spring. But they’ll need to clean up the little things if they want to take down the big dawgs to come.
