A couple weeks before the Buffaloes began spring practices, ex-Colorado defensive coordinator  Robert Livingston ventured south to interview as the Broncos’ defensive passing-game coordinator. He was particularly “excited,” as Colorado offensive coordinator Brennan Marion recalled to The Denver Post, about the prospect of coaching Denver’s 2025 first-round cornerback Jahdae Barron. A day later, Livingston was back in the Buffs’ building in Boulder.

There, walking in around noon, was Barron — there to catch up with Marion, who was the receivers coach at Texas in 2022 while Barron was a junior cornerback.

“The synergy of them two just meeting at the same time — being right there, right after (Livingston) was at the interview the day before — sometimes, God just syncs things up that way,” Marion said.

Barron talked ball with Marion and cousin Naeten Mitchell, a safety who recently transferred to Colorado. He ventured into the Buffs’ secondary room, too, to break down tape. And eventually, as Marion recounted, he and Livingston wandered off to go watch film together.

Barron stayed until 8 p.m.

“I haven’t met a person yet who doesn’t like Jahdae,” Marion said. “I mean, he’s kinda like a quarterback from that standpoint, where — he has that infectious personality.

“So him and Rob hit it off pretty easy, pretty quick.”

Shortly thereafter, the Broncos officially hired Livingston to replace the departed Jim Leonhard. It marked a professional reunion with Denver DC Vance Joseph, who Livingston worked with in Cincinnati in 2014 and 2015. It also marked a new figure in Barron’s development. And the development of their relationship will shape one of the most important questions awaiting the Broncos in 2026 and beyond: how can Denver extract first-round value from its 2025 first-round pick?

Finding a fit in a crowded secondary room

None of the dozens of Barron’s friends and family watching the NFL Draft last year, as his old high school coach Jason Cecil said, expected the Broncos to be the team to call in the first round. Denver — a team with established starters at every cornerback spot — simply felt he was the best player available, and took him “out of a place of luxury,” as Leonhard recounted to The Post.

Barron, according to data reviewed by The Denver Post, played the fewest percentage of his team’s regular-season defensive snaps (30%) of any first-round defensive rookie in 2025, when active. He played just 17 snaps combined in two playoff games.

“He was obviously upset,” Marion said of Barron, “from the standpoint that, he wanted to have a better year.”

Leonhard’s greatest challenge with Barron in his first NFL season, as the ex-Broncos coach told The Post last summer, was getting the rookie to actually turn his brain off. To understand his assignment at nickel — sometimes fitting a run gap, sometimes checking a tight end, sometimes fluid until a play developed — and stay within that. Read. React. Don’t cheat and try to apply learned collegiate tendencies to the NFL game.

At times, Barron looked like the instinctive ballhawk he was advertised to be; at times, he also looked like a 2001 iMac desktop trying to process five billion lines of code before triggering a decision.

Denver’s staff anticipated this, yo-yoing Barron between nickel and outside assignments from the start of his rookie camp.

“The vision was, he’s going to come in and challenge,” Leonhard, now the Bills’ defensive coordinator, told The Post this week. “But it wasn’t this, like — ‘There is a glaring hole in our secondary that he has to fill.’ We just thought he complemented the room great, and we were going to be able to create ways where he can impact games as he’s growing into what his eventual every-down-player role is going to be in that system, and the NFL.”

Entering Year Two, though, the Broncos need to solidify where Barron’s strengths fit best, both for his own development and for the future of their secondary. CB2 Riley Moss is entering the last year of his contract. So is Ja’Quan McMillian. Barron may well have a better shot at competing with Moss at outside cornerback in camp, but the organization has expressed a mixed view of his abilities there.

Head coach Sean Payton said multiple times last season that the Broncos view Barron as a nickel “with outside flex.” Ex-cornerbacks coach Addison Lynch, meanwhile, pounded the table to Denver brass in the pre-draft process in 2025 that Barron could play outside corner in the NFL. Leonhard said this week, too, that he felt Barron proved in 2025 he could “be an every-down player on the outside.” But both Lynch — fired after the season — and Leonhard are gone.

Enter Livingston, now, who has a decade-long track record back in Cincinnati of developing young secondary talent in veteran-laden rooms — as the Bengals had a habit of drafting a cornerback “every other year,” former Cincinnati defensive coordinator Paul Guenther recalled.

“I’m sure he can teach (Jahdae) how to play the position a little more instinctually,” Marion said. “The thought process of, ‘OK, they’re in 13-personnel, it����ap 3rd-and-3, this is what plays are coming.’ Or, ‘They’re in 11-personnel, 3rd-and-8, this is what plays are coming.’

“And they’ll be able to play a little bit faster, with the knowledge that Rob has.”

An up-and-down rookie year

“I just know the kid that he is – the faith-based kid that he is, how hungry he is to prove and take care of his mom and all of this stuff that he has to do and he’s responsible for — I know he’s going to get it done,” Marion told The Post last week. “The hard part is knowing, will he be able to get it done there, because of the talent in the room?”

Pat Surtain II is, well, Pat Surtain II. McMillian had a career year at nickel. Moss tied for the most-penalized cornerback in the league in 2025 (12) but also led the league in passes defensed (19). Barron vacillated between playing deep in situational dime packages, fitting run gaps as a veritable off-ball linebacker in big-nickel packages, covering tight ends man-to-man, and even started a game at safety.

During one conversation last year, Leonhard reminded Barron that Surtain, who came out of Alabama at the No. 9 overall pick in 2021, actually didn’t start in Week 1 of his 2021 rookie year. And Leonhard would confirm to Barron, from the staff’s side, that there was no frustration with his development.

But there was frustration, of course, from Barron’s own standpoint, a player who Leonhard said has “extremely high standards of himself.”

In a Week 11 win over the Chiefs, the rookie cornerback turned in his best game of the year: four tackles, a pick-six that was called back, and a few reps of excellent coverage on Kansas City legend Travis Kelce. A few days later, : “Tell swift (sic) put me on a song RIGHT NOW.” His confidence was soaring. Temporarily.

Two weeks later, Barron called Marion one late night after a sloppy Broncos overtime win over the Commanders.

“One week he’s riding high and thinks like, ‘Man, I’m killing it,'” Marion said. “And the next week, he’s like, ‘Damn, Coach — I messed up on this situation, I messed up here, I was supposed to be on this guy.'”

A film review of that Barron performance showed no real glaring errors, in his 24 snaps against Washington. He was a step too slow on a couple routes covering tight end Zach Ertz. He took a poor angle on a first-down scramble by Commanders quarterback Marcus Mariota. He communicated well on multiple other snaps, and nearly jumped a route for a would-be game-sealing pick in overtime. But Barron played more than 40% of Denver’s snaps in just one more game (Week 17 against Kansas City) the rest of the season.

“In no way was it a punishment thing — like, ‘He wasn’t doing what we asked him to do,'” Leonhard said, asked about Barron’s declining snaps down the stretch. “Just plays out sometimes, when you’re not a starter, that way.”

Barron, the 2024 Thorpe Award winner as the best defensive back in collegiate football, is not cursing circumstance. He is of the mentality, as Marion described, to shape his own results.

“From a parent situation, you want your kid to be on a great team sometimes, just to see what greatness looks like,” Marion said. “And they can match that, and then it takes their game to a whole new level. So, I think that����ap what that did for him, right? Seeing, like, ‘I can’t make a mistake. These guys aren’t making any. I can’t slip up. I have to be on point at all times.’”

“He took that as a challenge. He didn’t take that as a crutch, or crippling his development. He’s taking that as like, ‘Alright, I’m gonna prove it.’”

Barron, Marion said, respects Joseph, who’s repeatedly gushed about Barron to The Post. By proxy, Marion added, Barron will respect Livingston, who worked with Joseph in coaching Cincinnati’s defensive backs in 2014 and 2015. Many of Joseph’s current defensive principles — disguising blitzers indistinguishably from players dropping back into coverage — are similar to what Cincinnati did a decade ago, under defensive coordinator Guenther. And the “roots” of Livingston’s defenses for the last two seasons at Colorado, Guenther told The Post, are the same.

Upon arriving to Colorado, Livingston organized a turnaround from one of the worst defenses in the FBS in 2023 to a top-45 unit in 2024. Colorado slumped back to 112th in the country in opponent points-per-game in a 3-9 season in 2025. But he leaves the building with high marks from head coach Deion Sanders, one of the best corners in the history of the NFL.

“I feel like, he knows, inside, what he’s done with this program,” Sanders said. “Sometimes, we get caught up in numbers, and statistics, and not understanding personnel and knowledge and what he brought to this program. He brought a lot.”

A track record of molding young talent

In February, Barron met former Bengals cornerback Darqueze Dennard for the second time at the annual Thorpe Award banquet in Oklahoma City. They’d first chatted a year before, when Barron took the stage himself to accept the trophy. The circumstances, this time around, were rather different.

Dennard offered a shred of advice.

“I told him, he’s just gotta trust them,” Dennard said, speaking on Denver’s staff. “They’re mad scientists, what they’re doing. Just put the work in, and all the rest of the stuff gon’ play out how it����ap supposed to.”

He would know. 11 years before Barron, there was Dennard, who was drafted late in 2014’s first round by Cincinnati after a Thorpe Award-winning senior season at Michigan State. Guenther and Joseph shifted Dennard from outside corner to nickel to eventually supplant aging veteran Leon Hall. It was not easily received.

Livingston, as Dennard recounted, was a constant support, then in his first year as a staffer after spending a couple years in Cincinnati’s scouting department.

“He saw more into me than I did, at the time,” Dennard said. “I just kinda wanted to be on my island, X-out this player, and be done with it for the day. Where, he wanted me to come in and actually be able to impact football games.”

“Like, I don’t know how much he can help a 10-year vet,” Early said. “But a young one that he’s able to get his hands on and that hasn’t quite had that breakout year yet — I think you’ll see a tremendous difference in whoever the previous guy was, and how Doug is able to bring those guys along.”

Those development-focused hires, then, will set up a fascinating positional battle between three younger cornerbacks vying for two starting spots — and long-term futures in Denver. The 25-year-old McMillian is playing this season on a one-year, $5.8 million tender, and is currently set to hit unrestricted free agency in 2027. The 26-year-old Moss is on the final year of his rookie deal.

The Broncos got plenty of glimpses last season of Barron in big-nickel units, and saw him play heavier snaps outside midseason when Surtain was sidelined with a pec injury. And the rising second-year corner has a chance, this spring and summer, to make it easy for Denver to decide whether to pay McMillian or Moss long-term.

“There is learning in the NFL, but nothing’s going to be new this year that he (doesn’t) already know,” Leonhard said. “But he did prove last year, he can be an every-down player on the outside, just as much as he can play on the inside and be a nickel and dime.”

At this year’s Thorpe ceremony, too, Barron and Dennard — men of faith — bonded over Proverbs 27:17, talking about Barron’s future.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

“Get better with your sword, get better with your crown,” Dennard said. “And that was his mindset.”

when she reaches for her CU shirt. And now she’s starting to criticize little things Deion Sanders does.

“We’re not anything new and shiny anymore,” Stephan, a CU sophomore, told me as the 2026 Black & Gold scrimmage kicked off Saturday at Folsom Field.

“We’re just kind of a mediocre team that somehow still makes headlines because of our coach.”

Talk about a mic drop

On a pleasant, overcast Saturday afternoon along Colorado Avenue, The Coach Prime Era at CU officially shifted from the honeymoon phase to the reality phase. Especially with the undergrads in the crowd.

“I think the honeymoon is definitely not going anymore, personally,” said Stephan, a Minneapolis native and one of those out-of-staters whose parents dug her going to CU, in part, after watching the Sanders Effect from afar. “I think the honeymoon phase has ended. And they’re really struggling to try to keep it up, in my opinion.”

You know the signs. The passion fades. The glow dims. Little things you used to overlook start to get on your nerves. Expectations don’t always line up. Communication can be blunt and awkward.

Saturday wasn’t awkward, but compared to previous Aprils in Prime Time, it was remarkably … normal. No national TV. No Hollywood A-listers — although ex-Broncos great Aqib Talib did show up to talk shop.

The event was ticketed, but free. CU reported a crowd of 27,772 in “claimed” attendance. In person, it looked more like 17,000-18,000, up close.

Which is, you know, fine. Not great. Fine. And pretty close to last year’s reported attendance of 20,430. CU announced a spring crowd of 28,424 in ’24, well down from 47,277 in ’23, Coach Prime’s first public exhibition as the Buffs’ boss.

“As someone who came from a Big Ten-school culture, there’s a lack of culture here in general for football,” Stephan continued. “It kind of feels like, for me, (for) students, it’s like, ‘Show up, it’s a fashion show, smoke, drink, leave.”’

“So,” I countered, “it’s sort of like the SEC?”

“Yeah, but the thing is, they win. And even if they lose, they do a ton of pregame activities. They have more lights, and just … everything.”

The lower bowl of Folsom’s east side was pretty much full; the upper section of bleachers, not so much. Mind you, that was also by design — the west side of the stadium was roped off entirely, so that 50% of capacity was scrunched into one half of the building.

And the eye test made it seem smaller. Like, a lot smaller.

“That’s not just us,” Sanders said after the scrimmage. “No one’s valuing spring (football games) anymore. You’ve got several major colleges not even having spring games. The only thing that would bring it back is if we compete against another school …

“Winning also helps increase that (interest). But people get tired of the same-old, same-old, at a certain point … Things are so different in college football right now with kids moving, kids leaving … so it’s hard for the fan base to get to know all these kids and to buy in and say, ‘You know what, I’m going to support that, (and now) he’s gone.’ So I understand it, wholeheartedly. But we have a tremendous fan base. We have a tremendous student body. We still have a lot of people out there that (are) crazy about CU football. And I’m excited about that.”

On one hand, he’s right. Nebraska, which would fill Memorial Stadium in Lincoln for a “Magic: The Gathering” tournament if it meant setting some kind of record, drew just 27,188 for its spring game late last month. That was the smallest crowd for a Big Red football exhibition since 2000.

“And so to come here and walk in, there’s like 10 people,” said Omaha native Jess Wozniak, a Folsom first-timer whose son played alto sax in the pep band Saturday. “When we first got here … I was like, ‘Wow, there’s not many.’ Now it’s filling up. Now it’s looking better.’

“I think the hype (for Sanders) is still there. I feel like it’s filling up — so the hype has got to be here, still, somewhere, right?”

“It’s also a free ticket,” I noted.

“Oh, true,” she laughed. “I didn’t think about that.”

Garrett Tyrrell of Durango, sitting to her right, piped up.

“Put it this way,” he said. “The old man is still watching.”

So are the kids. Stephan and fellow CU sophomore Colin Chow hiked it up to the top of Section 213 to get an aerial view of Ralphie’s run. Not long after, Buffs QB Julian Lewis opened the scoring for the day with a 13-yard scoring touch pass in the back of the end zone to Danny Scudero, the former San Jose State star and arguably the jewel of Coach Prime’s transfer haul.

“I think (2026) could be better than (last fall),” Stephan reflected. “I don’t think it’s going to be better than (2024) with Shedeur (Sanders) and Travis (Hunter). That was an insane year. A lot of culture. It was really fun. Everyone was excited going into every game.

“But (2025), not so much. There were a couple of games we went into, and we were like, ‘(CU) is going to lose, might as well show up.'”

Stephan stayed for the Buffs’ home finale against Arizona State last fall — all the way to the bitter end of a 42-17 defeat. Her dad, a Badgers alum, taught her to never leave early.

“And I was like, ‘This (stinks),'” she laughed.

“That was the only game I left halfway through,” Chow, a Golden native, added.  “I mean, they were competitive in (’23 and ’24) — even if (CU) didn’t win, everyone was excited. People had expectations for weird games or sudden victories. But (last year), it was like, ‘Well, we’re down 30, no one on this team is going to pull that out.'”

Chow grew up nearby. But Stephan’s parents were so enamored of the Coach Prime Experience that they flew down to attend games, just to see Sanders up close.

“I think part of it, too, is (that) Deion isn’t really as new or as (much of) a novelty now,” Stephan said. “He’s been here as long as a lot of students who go to the games.

“That’s cool, but it’s not the same as Deion coming in and ‘saving it’ from what it was earlier. So it’s just a different feel when new students come in. There are expectations now instead of (it being) the new cool thing.”

At 11:35 a.m., about 90 minutes before the scrimmage, a 20-something in a blue t-shirt looked at the line forming across the street and waved at me.

“Excuse me,” he asked, nodding back to Folsom behind us. “So, what is the event today?”

“CU’s Black & Gold game,” I replied. “Spring football.”

“OK, thanks.”

He shrugged, turned on his heel and walked away. Never saw him again. Sometimes, reality bites.

“I truly thank God every day that I’m here because it����ap truly a blessing to be a part of such a fun culture and in a beautiful place,” the Colorado receiver said after the Buffaloes’ annual Black & Gold Day at Folsom Field. “Colorado is a beautiful place, and Folsom Field is … I couldn’t get enough.

“I had to take a moment and just kind of look around and kind of be proud of myself for where I was and where my feet were. So, it was definitely a blessing to be here.”

A senior transfer from San Jose State, Scudero provided one of the few highlights in a spring game that was vanilla by design. His 13-yard touchdown reception from quarterback JuJu Lewis was the only touchdown of the abbreviated scrimmage, won by the Gold team, 7-6.

It was a scrimmage, however, that got the job done, in terms of completing a session of 15 spring workouts that sets the table for the 2026 Buffs.

“You accomplish things, and we need to better ourselves in a multitude of aspects,” CU head coach Deion Sanders said. “We got some good things going on. I think you can see the fruit thereof.”

Offensively, there weren’t many fireworks, other than Lewis’ sensational pass to Scudero for the lone touchdown, but there were some efficient and productive plays.

Lewis, projected as the starter at quarterback, unofficially completed 6-of-11 passes for 60 yards. The redshirt freshman looked more comfortable than he did in last year’s spring game.

“He was a lot better,” Sanders said. “And I think that����ap very easy to obtain when you got Danny Scudero on your side. He is a dawg, and having a comfort level with the playbook and the way (offensive coordinator Brennan) Marion communicates on the set. You gotta understand that was the first time that all the coaches got an opportunity to communicate (on the headsets).”

Isaac Wilson, who is competing for the job as well, was unofficially 6-for-12 for 65 yards and was intercepted by freshman cornerback Mojo Williams Jr. on the last play.

Scudero had two catches for 25 yards, running back Damian Henderson had 39 rushing yards on five carries, and Quentin Gibson caught four passes for 38 yards.

Defensively, end Toby Anene had a sack and batted down a pass, defensive tackle Santana Hopper made several plays at the line of scrimmage and defensive back Boo Carter was active all day.

“The hardest thing to measure when you’re measuring the spring game is if the offense does well, that means the defense is not doing well. And vice versa,” Sanders said. “You hope to see the quarterbacks not throw interceptions like we did on the last play. You hope that they move the ball down the field. You hope that defensive backs are aggressive and physical.

“It����ap a multitude of things, but the main thing is you don’t want to get anybody hurt.”

Sanders said two players suffered “strained MCLs,” but not tears, so he said, “We’re going to be OK with that.”

Coming off a disappointing 3-9 season in 2025 and rebuilding with 59 new players this spring, CU didn’t draw a lot of buzz for this year’s spring game.

It was the first of Sanders’ four spring games to not be televised, although it was streamed on YouTube.

Unlike the previous three years, CU didn’t charge for tickets. Officially, 27,772 tickets were claimed, which would make it the third-most “attended” spring game in CU history, behind the 2023 and 2024 games. However, BuffZone estimates that roughly 10,000 tickets were used.

Around the country, many programs have cancelled spring games and Sanders said that plays a role in the decreased interest in CU’s game.

“No one’s valuing spring anymore,” he said. “The only thing that would bring that back is we compete against another school, and I’ve been saying that for the last several years.”

CU’s disappointing season in 2025 played a role, too, though.

“Winning also helps increase that, but people get tired of the same old, same old at a certain point and you want more,” he said.

He also acknowledged it����ap tough for fans to get to know players when there’s so much movement in the transfer portal every year. Yet, he was appreciative of the thousands of fans who did show up to watch and enjoy Black & Gold Day.

“I understand (the other factors) wholeheartedly, but we have a tremendous fan base,” he said. “We have a tremendous student body and we still have a lot of people out there that����ap crazy about CU football. And I’m excited about that.”

LoDo comes alive with baseball fans, school kids playing hooky, office workers calling in sick, and party animals who don’t know the difference between a double play and a double cheeseburger.

Libations flow and the good times roll.

On Friday, they’ll be serving purple croissants and baseball-themed drinks at There’s a watch party at McGregor Square where fans can see the game on a 66-foot outdoor screen.

Former Rockies manager Clint Hurdle summed it up well.

“I’ve been fortunate to be a part of some special opening days in baseball in infectious cities,” he once told The Post. “But opening day in Denver will always hold a special place in my heart. It was the event that annually reignited the love affair of a football town with its baseball team.”

Oh yes, the baseball team. It plays a game on Friday at Coors Field, hosting the Philadelphia Phillies and Bryce Harper, an All-Star Colorado fans love to hate.

Friday officially marks the Rockies’ 34th home opener, but it’s really only the 33rd because the 2020 opener was fanless due to the pandemic. And while the Rockies are not a winning franchise — they own an all-time record of 2366-2822 and just five playoff seasons — they are 17-16 in home openers.

From walk-off home runs to walk-up songs, from pitching gems to offensive fireworks, the Rockies have produced memorable games inside the ballpark. Here are the 10 best Rockies home openers:

No. 10, April 10, 2023: Left-hander Kyle Freeland, a Denver native, pitched 6 2/3 scoreless innings in the Rockies’ 1-0 victory over Washington.

“The butterflies were going for sure, and we’ve talked about how much this means to me, to be able to pitch in front of my home state and get a win. It means the world to me,” Freeland said.

The victory marked the first time the Rockies won a 1-0 game at Coors since July 4, 2018, vs. San Francisco.

No. 9, April 10, 2010: Left-hander Jorge De La Rosa dominated the Padres in Colorado’s 7-0 shutout. “De La” allowed one hit and one walk and struck out nine in a game that took just 2 hours, 28 minutes. It was a prime example of De La Rosa’s ability to slay the pitching beast that is Coors Field.

“I guess I just feel more comfortable at home,” De La Rosa told The Post. “I just feel like I have control there, especially with my changeup. I feel like I can throw it in any count.”

No. 8, April 3, 2006: In the Rockies’ second straight walk-off win in a home opener, they beat the Diamondbacks 3-2 in 11 innings on Brad Hawpe’s game-winning RBI to drive in Matt Holliday. Right-hander Jason Jennings threw seven innings of one-run ball.

The Hawpe-Holliday combo was a precursor of the magic that became Rocktober a year and a half later.

No. 7, April 7, 2017: Freeland made his major league debut against the Dodgers and took the mound to thunderous applause from the sellout crowd of 49,169. The Thomas Jefferson High graduate received a standing ovation when he departed after six innings, having allowed just one run on four hits, walking two, and striking out six.

“What an outing for Kyle,” first-year Rockies manager Bud Black said after the Rockies’ 2-1 win. “I think the people of Denver should be very proud of their native son.”

Freeland’s debut was the first of its kind in nearly 51 years. Before his start, the last major-league pitcher to make his debut as a starting pitcher in his team’s home opener in the state of his birth was Chuck Dobson for the Kansas City Athletics on April 19, 1966, vs. Minnesota.

No. 6, April 2, 2001: Left-hander Mike Hampton made a sensational Rockies debut, pitching eight-plus shutout innings and allowing five hits as Colorado blanked the Cardinals 8-0. It was the Rocky Mountain high point for Hampton, who had signed a then-record eight-year, $121 million contract the prior offseason.

He finished his two-year stint with Colorado with a 5.45 ERA, including a 5.73 ERA at Coors Field. Hampton became a cautionary tale about shelling out big bucks for starting pitchers in Colorado.

No. 5, April 7, 1997: The Rockies and Larry Walker walloped the Reds and Deion Sanders, 13-2. Walker, with Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” accompanying him to the plate, gave fans a preview of his MVP season.

Walker went 2 for 5 with a double and a triple on his way to batting .366 with a career-high 49 homers and 130 RBIs. Coach Prime went 0 for 4 from the leadoff spot.

As for his iconic walk-up song, Walker told The Post’s Troy Renck: “I hope the pitchers were scared … that when they were messing with their rosin bag and heard Ozzy come on, they had that feeling of, ‘Oh (crap)!’ ”

No. 4, April 4, 2005: With the score tied 10-10 in the bottom of the ninth, shortstop Clint Barmes launched Hall of Fame closer Trevor Hoffman’s first-pitch fastball into the left-field seats for a walk-off two-run homer, capping a four-hit day in Colorado’s 12-10 victory.

“I remember running the bases thinking this can’t be real,” “The next game, I was still on cloud nine, but the game slowed down for me after the home run.”

Before he was injured, Barmes had an amazing spring. On May 13, Barmes went 3-for-6, hitting two home runs with five RBIs, raising his batting average to .400.

No. 3, April 4, 2014: This was the day that Chuck got Nazty. Sporting the beginnings of his famed beard, Blackmon hit 6-for-6 with one home run, three doubles, two singles, and five RBIs in Colorado’s 12-2 rout of Arizona.

And to think he wasn’t sure he would be on the Opening Day roster coming out of spring training.

“That one game, you could almost say, single-handedly turned my career around,” said Blackmon, who became a four-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger.

No. 2, April 9, 1993: In the first home plate appearance in the first home game in Rockies history, Eric Young took Expos’ starter Kent Bottenfield deep to left-center in front of a record crowd of 80,227 at Mile High Stadium. Colorado won its inaugural home opener, 11-4.

“I had chills going through my body like crazy as I was circling the bases,” Young later told The Post. “But that home run was not just a moment that was for me — it was for the Colorado region and all the people who were excited about baseball finally being in the state.”

You think? The Rockies drew 4,483,350 fans to Mile High that season, a major league attendance record that will likely never be broken.

No. 1, April 26, 1995: The first game in Coors Field history was instantly iconic. Dante Bichette hit a walk-off, three-run homer in the 14th inning off the Mets’ Mike Remlinger for an 11-9 victory. The seesaw game that began with icy rain and 42 degrees at first pitch lasted nearly five hours.

The phrase Blake Street Bombers didn’t catch on until later that season, but Bichette’s blast planted the seed.

“With the Blake Street Bombers, what we were legendary at was, no lead was safe in our park,” Bichette said. “That homer probably was the hit that set that tone. We would go into the sixth or seventh inning down three runs, and we knew we could win that game. That was the personality of our team and what we became.”

Sean Payton? On fourth-and-1, he might bootleg Steady Stiddy again rather than take the points.

Jared Bednar? Not if the other team comes out wearing Dallas sweaters.

David Adelman? Not if you want a fourth-quarter lead to be safe and sound.

Warren Schaeffer? Nice guy who’ll finish last. Deion Sanders? Hello, ESPN. Bye-bye, free world.

“I’ve worked with amazing coaches in hockey and many other sports,” Josh Berlo, DU’s vice chancellor for athletics and Ritchie Center operations, told me Sunday after the Pioneers pounded Western Michigan and clinched a third straight trip to the Frozen Four. “And David’s as good as they get. He really is.”

In any sport. Anywhere. The 36-year-old Pios coach is going to his sixth Frozen Four and shooting for his third national title. He’s 14-3 in the NCAA tournament, good for a winning percentage of 82.5% in the Big Dance.

“I would say that there’s one word to describe David Carle as a coach and a human being,” Berlo said. “And it’s, ‘Fantastic.'”

I’ll give you another: Best.

Best in the metro. Best in the Front Range. Best in the state, really, now that Name/Image/Likeness and the House ruling have helped suck the juice out of Air Force football under Troy Calhoun.

And this Pios team, the first at DU to ever clinch a third straight Frozen Four bid, might be Carle’s best coaching job yet.

“They’ve had a lot of great coaching seasons. I would definitely say this one ranks up there because they had to battle some adversity,” Berlo noted. “They had to battle some injuries. Go up against incredible competition and the expectations and some change, right? … And to see it all play out and to get to a Frozen Four without getting on an airplane in the postseason, that doesn’t happen.”

Sure doesn’t. On Jan. 11, the Pios were 12-9-2, with Quentin Miller starting in goal. In the 18 games since, they’re 15-2-1. On Jan. 24 against St. Cloud State, freshman Johnny Hicks replaced the injured Miller as the No. 1 net-minder, and the Pios took off, stringing together a record of 14-0-1 after that.

“There’s a phrase I use with the staff, ‘You know, winning just tastes better when you do it the right way,'” Berlo continued.

“And then, you have the challenge of doing it consistently. You’ve got to stay focused. You’ve got to fight complacency. You’ve got to stay innovative. Because folks want to take your spot in the world.”

Everybody wants Carle’s spot atop the mountain. Everybody’s gunning for the Pios. Yet DC at DU remains unmoved. Bruised, yes. But never broken, never bowed.

Thanks to Sunday’s 6-2 win, Carle’s slated to take his kids to Vegas for the program’s sixth Frozen Four over his eight seasons at the helm. Only the legendary Murray Armstrong, who helmed DU from 1956-77 and took the Pios to 10 national semis, has more.

Last May, DU announced that it had signed Carle to a “multi-year” extension. What do you say, Josh? Can we just rip it up and replace it with a “lifetime” appointment?

“I mean, as a private institution, we’re not going to talk about contracts,” Berlo laughed. “But we will absolutely say we are so proud of the partnership with Coach Carle and the staff and the fact that he’s a graduate of our institution. It’s a fantastic story and relationship, and we couldn’t be prouder of it. And the mutual commitment is so strong and so authentic. You just don’t see that anymore.”

You just don’t. In a world of revenue sharing and transfer portals, where rosters flip on a dime, one thing in college sports never changes: You can’t have a Frozen Four without Carle and DU.

The funny thing is that the next stop after Loveland’s regional final is The Strip, where Carle’s quiet, businesslike, buttoned-down reserve serves as an almost hilarious contrast to a town of neon, nightlife and naughty bits.

“I’ve never been to the Rio, but it’s a nice hotel. Us and the winner of the (Albany) regional will be there,” Carle deadpanned Sunday. “So yeah, I mean, there’s distractions. We have connections and we’ll find places to go for dinners and such. It’s usually pretty focused. There’s a lot of distractions anywhere you’re going, (and) we live in a pretty major metro market. You also want the great student-athlete experience.”

Hicks, DU’s lithe stopper out of British Columbia, is too young to legally drink, anyway. The young man makes up for his size (5-foot-10) between the pipes by pouncing the way a mountain lion pounces on wounded prey.

With 16:14 left, Hicks zipped to his right post and slapped a blocker pad hard to the ice to turn away a dangerous tap. A few seconds later, the public-address system at Blue Arena pumped out a thumping rendition of

And for the most part, on Sunday, Johnny was. The Pios kept the heat off him early on, but the Broncos’ second shot on goal found its way through. With DU up 2-0 and 13:29 left in the opening stanza, Hicks appeared to lose the carom off a Broncos’ wrister, and as the puck dangled in the blue behind him, Broncos defender Zach Bookman crashed the crease and poked it home to cut the Pios’ lead in half, 2-1.

DU cruised from there. The Pios led 4-1 after a period and put the clamps down, methodically squeezing the clock and the Broncos’ hopes of a repeat title, a shift at a time. Which felt even sweeter, given that WMU had eliminated DU at the Frozen Four last spring en route to winning the national title.

“(Culture) starts with (assistant/GM) Tavis (MacMillan) and the recruiting efforts of our messaging to coming players and recruits,” Carle said. “You know, you’re not coming here because we won. You’re coming here because we want to win and add to the tradition that is DU hockey. And so, yeah, a lot of success (is) finding the right people … there’s some things that need to go your way too. But we really try to recruit to people who want to add to what we’ve done — and not just come here because of what we’ve done.”

Hicks? Freshman. Kyle Chyzowski, whose backhand put the Pios up 2-0? Freshman. Brendan McMorrow, who slid in a rebound to make it 4-1? Freshman.

Carle’s been so good with the kids, it’s no wonder why so many Avalanche fans look at the King of Jewell Avenue a few miles south and wonder, out loud, if he could do with the burgundy and blue what he’s done for the crimson and gold.

Especially after watching Vegas lop Bruce Cassidy, who led the Golden Knights to a Stanley Cup title in 2023, and replace him with John Tortorella. Some is going to pull up to Carle’s house in a Brink’s truck soon and dare him to ride shotgun.

“Yeah, I think (the NHL interest), that’s a question for David,” Berlo said, chuckling again. “Honestly, we’re committed to him. And he knows it, and he loves it here. It’s actually that simple. It really is.”

The Grading The Week crew loves it when a plan starts coming together. Especially when that plan is the Nuggets’ injury-riddled rotation. The return of breakout wing Peyton Watson on top of the return of Mr. Nugget, Aaron Gordon, gave Adelman the jolt an inconsistent campaign needed with the playoffs looming: a 4-0 record from March 20-26, a stretch that featured a home rout of Portland in which the defense actually flashed in the second half; and a 125-123 win at Phoenix this past Tuesday night that Adelman might’ve found a way to lose a few weeks earlier.

More importantly? With a healthy AG, Watson and Spencer Jones back in the rotation, the coaching staff just might have found a salve for the franchise’s eternal “non-Jokic-minutes” quandary. And it’s an old, familiar friend, too — the small, center-less lineup.

Nuggets’ small-ball lineup — A-minus

According to NBA.com tracking data, the Nuggets featured two five-man lineups that played at least seven minutes together from March 19-26 and managed to put up a Net Rating (basically, a points differential per 100 possessions) of plus-7.0 points or better:

• Nikola Jokic-Jamal Murray-Cam Johnson-Christian Braun-Tim Hardaway Jr.: One game, 7 minutes, plus-65.0 Net Rating (158.8-93.8).

• Murray-Bruce Brown-Cam Johnson-Spencer Jones-Tim Hardaway Jr: Three games, 19 minutes, plus-56.0 Net Rating (141.7-85.7).

Now that first grouping, while fun, might be too small a sample size to take to the bank at this point.

But that second one? That looks an awful lot like a “stagger” look that can start the second and/or fourth quarters of playoff games while Jokic rests.

Because it’s been working, time and again. Of the four games spanning March 20-26, the Nuggets “won” every second period. In fact, they outscored the opposition by an average of margin of 34-25.

And the fourth quarter differential wasn’t all that far behind. Denver “won” three of those four fourth stanzas and outscored opponents 29-26, on average, over the final 12 minutes of regulation.

Throw in the fact that the Nuggets put up a plus-9 point differential during their “non-Jokic” minutes on the road against the Suns, and the verdict is clear: Adelman’s not just onto something by going small with his bench. He’s probably already found it.

Jonas Valanciunas’ minutes — C-minus

Of course, one of the problems with the grind of an NBA season is that sometimes, a workable solution leaves a small problem in its wake. Or in the case of center Jonas Valanciunas, a 6-foot-11 problem.

Because that four-game, 4-0 stretch for the Nuggets featured something else that stood out: Big Val didn’t play. At all.

In fact, the backup big, as of Friday afternoon, hadn’t seen the floor for Denver since scoring four points and grabbing three boards over six minutes in a loss at Memphis back on March 18.

Valanciunas has more than proved his worth this season, especially during that month while the Joker was out. It’s clear that some matchups for the 33-year-old veteran are better than others. And two of the worst matchups that the GTW scouts have seen for Big Val this season have come against Oklahoma City and San Antonio. Just saying.

Jordan Seaton, London Merritt join CU dig parade — D

If once (see Staub, Ryan) is a lone-wolf malcontent, then twice and thrice is a pattern of unhappy dawgs. At any rate, add Jordan Seaton and London Merritt to the list for former CU Buffs offering subtle jabs at Deion Sanders’ old coaching staff over the last few days.

“Being here, it just means more,” Seaton, the Buffs’ former star left tackle who’s now at LSU, told reporters. “Being here (in Baton Rouge) is different, from how we train to how we work. When it comes to work, that’s what this place is about.

“(This program) was just a lot better than where I was, facility-wise, coaching-wise,” “(I) feel like it was just a better option for me.”

Yes, the money to transfer out of Boulder was a big thing. But it clearly wasn’t the only thing.

The Buffs’ men’s basketball team (17-15, 7-11 Big 12)  and coach Tad Boyle missed the Big Dance for a second consecutive year. And for a second spring in a row, they’ll be playing around the time of the men’s Final Four anyway.

CU in the CBC — B

This past Monday, CU again accepted a berth in the College Basketball Crown (CBC) tournament in Las Vegas.

The CBC is a made-for-TV event which will run April 1-5, concurrent with men’s Final Four weekend, and aired on FOX Sports via its network affiliates or via FS1. The eight-team field, made up entirely of either “traditional” basketball powers or Power 4 conference reps who didn’t make the NCAA Tournament, will compete for a prize pool of $500,000 in NIL money. CU could use that cash, of course, for reasons we’ll get to in a second.

Anyway, the Buffs are slated to take on old Big 12/Big Eight rival Oklahoma in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, April 1. The winner will play either Baylor or Minnesota, coached by former CSU fan favorite Niko Medved, on April 4 in the semis.

Team Grading The Week (GTW) would love to get a Boyle-Medved rematch in Sin City. And it would be doubly great for Buffs fans to see CU’s exciting young core of freshman guard Isaiah Johnson (16.9 points per game), freshman forward Alon Michaeli (6.7 points per game) and sophomore forward Sebastian Rancik (12.3 points per game) go at it together at least one more time.

Because if you’re a Buffs hoops fan, you’ve learned that, when it comes to rosters, nothing is promised. You’ve also learned that the date next month that might be of more interest for CU’s future is April 7 — the opening day of a transfer-portal period that runs through April 21.

CU in the transfer portal — TBD

According to 247Sports.com’s tracker, s. That’s roughly 35-40% of a typical roster.

Seven players left the Buffs after a frustrating 14-21 (3-17 conference) campaign in ’24-25. The site says that CU’s averaged two portal additions over the spring of ’23, ’24 and ’25.

It’s a net negative that has opened up a great opportunity for first-year players in Boulder. Although it doesn’t portend well for keeping those young guns together.

Because the price for top-flight men’s hoops talent, like the price of oil, keeps going up. Opendorse, the data platform that both helps to facilitate and analyze Name/Image/Likeness (NIL) opportunities, And it’s expensive.

Per Opendorse, the Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big East spend $7 million to $10 million, on average, to maintain their rosters. CU’s athletic budget report to the NCAA for the 2024-25 fiscal year, the most recent public data available, shows that Buffs men’s hoops recorded $11.92 million in total operating revenues last school year against another $8.6 million in reported expenses.

Which means CU was already running on some thin margins before revenue-sharing was implemented this past summer. For some of the guff Boyle has taken since the Buffs joined the Big 12, a hoops league that’s far nastier than the Pac-12 that CU left behind, it becomes more apparent by the week that the Buffs don’t need more changes on their bench. They need more money to help Boyle retain the players he’s already got.

Staub shades Shurmur — D

Martin Luther Staub, or Benedict Staub? Former Tennessee Volunteers QB Ryan Staub, who got the program’s second crack at starting during Deion Sanders’ revolving door of post-Shedeur signal-callers last fall, offered up some mixed messages about his old program recently while meeting with reporters who cover the Vols.

On Coach Prime: “Just an unbelievable person. He impacted a lot of people on that Colorado team, made good connections with a lot of those players, and especially with me.”

On how UT compares to CU: “In my three years of playing college football, I haven’t had as much coaching as I’ve had in the first month that I’ve been here (in Knoxville).”

Those Pat Shurmur jokes just continue to write themselves, don’t they?

Coach Prime announced this past Friday, his first media scrum of the 2026 spring football calendar, that the Buffs are going into his fourth season without a special teams coordinator.

Now this got several corners of the ol’ interwebs worked up into quite a lather. After all, CU has to replace Sanders favorite Alejandro “Auto” Mata at placekicker — and when you’re coming off a 3-9 campaign, you need all the gameday advantages you can muster.

But then the cooler heads at the Grading The Week offices reminded us that the Buffs also had gone into the 2024 season without a dedicated special teams coach — without one who was listed on the CUBuffs.com website, at any rate.

So they’ve been here before. Sort of. Reilly resigned just before the start of the 2024 season and multiple reports popped up not long after confirming that he had sought NIL funding for CU from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

Now it is unique — among Big 12 football programs, CU was the only one entering spring ball that didn’t list “special teams” as an assignment for any of its assistant coaches.

According to CU athletics’ website, counting analysts, the Buffs had four offensive line coaches, three defensive line coaches, three linebackers coaches, and two coaches each assigned to wide receivers and running backs, officially.

So maybe we’re just gnashing our teeth over semantics.

Then again, maybe not.

No special teams coordinator at CU? — Incomplete

As precedent goes, Ohio State went without a dedicated special teams coordinator during the 2024 and ’25 seasons.

In January, coach Ryan Day hired former Illinois Robby Discher to oversee Ohio State’s special teams units.

CU listed Michael Pollock as special teams coordinator last season. The Buffs ranked No. 131 out of 136 schools in unadjusted special teams position efficiency in 2025 and checked in at just 104th in 2024. Like a lot of things in CU’s Sanders Era, the results for the Buffs’ special teams the last three years — like the rosters, the coaches and the results — have been all over the map.

JR Payne’s CU extension — A

New CU Buffs athletic director Fernando Lovo may be young, but he’s wise enough to know when to leave something alone. Especially when it’s something good.

Buffs women’s basketball coach JR Payne has had the best hoops team, men or women, in the market since the season tipped off. She’s built up the kind of consistency in her program you can set your Apple Watch to. If the fates (and committees) are kind, she’s about to notch her fourth NCAA Tournament bid over the last five seasons, and has already clinched five 20-win campaigns in a row. The last Buffs coach to reach 20 victories or more in six straight? The legendary Ceal Barry.

This past Wednesday, Lovo announced that CU had extended Payne’s contract through 2031. It’s hard to argue that every nickel wasn’t deserved.

DU’s Carson Johnson dominates — A

Meanwhile, the top men’s college hoopster in the metro just might call DU home. A belated tip of the GTW week cap to who on Tuesday was named both Summit League Player of the Year and Summit League Newcomer of the Year.

Dude’s not just a heck of a player. He’s a heck of a story, too. Johnson grew up in Ankeny, Iowa, the same hometown as Broncos cornerback Riley Moss, and wound up at Minnesota State-Moorhead — a Division II program in the Great White North — as a 6-foot-1 freshman.

Johnson followed Minnesota State-Moorhead coach Tim Bergstraser to DU when the latter took the Pios job, and the young man didn’t miss a beat while stepping up a level. Over his first 31 games, Johnson led DU in scoring (20.2 points per game), assists (94) and 3-point makes (85). As of Friday morning, he was tied for ninth among Division I players in 20-point games this season. As Bergstraster rebuilds DU, Johnson’s already shown the goods to be one of his key pillars. To say nothing of an absolute keeper.

He turned up early for 5:30 a.m. meetings. He drove freshmen quarterbacks to practice. He drew up flash cards for one of the funkiest offenses in college football. He scaled 10-foot fences to open up hot tubs for teammates.

OK, about that last one …

“We’re hanging out at my apartment complex,” rehabbing CU safety Ben Finneseth, who walked into the Champions Center with a heavy knee brace and a heavy heart, recalled Monday. “We’ve got a hot tub there. One of my roommates had the key to the clubhouse, so (we) couldn’t get in. And obviously, my knee was a little stuck.”

No problem. he volunteered to climb a fence, Jason Bourne style, and eventually let Finneseth in from the inside.

“He did it without hesitation,” Finneseth said. “He was always just serving his teammates. And that’s just the kind of person he was.”

CU held a news conference to commemorate the opening of spring ball late Monday morning. It was unlike any news conference the Buffs had held in the Coach Prime Era.

It wasn’t even really a news conference — more a series of personal testimonies on Ponder, the 23-year-old Buffs quarterback who had been killed early Sunday during a single-vehicle crash in Boulder County.

“Especially nowadays, with the transfer portal in college football, you’ve gotta come together. You gotta have a ‘why,'” Finneseth continued. “At the end of the day, it’s just a call sheet for these coordinators. The players are what make it come alive. And you’ve got to have a ‘why’ for your brothers, and for doing it for each other. And so that’s been my biggest focus.”

As word spread, CU’s football players met Sunday night. The news, the scars, were still fresh. Sanders gave them the option of practicing on Monday or taking a day off.

The Buffs practiced.

Not always crisply. Or all that brilliantly. But they practiced.

“And we decided as a team, Dom wouldn’t miss the day,” Finneseth explained later. “He wouldn’t miss the day of workouts. And that’s what he would have wanted for us.

“He would have said, ‘Life’s gotta move on. We’ve got championships to win, and we still have goals, and the clocks are still rolling. The world’s still going to spin. Don’t stop just because I’m done, you know?’

“So, obviously, there (were) a lot of emotions (Sunday) and a lot of guys breaking down and tearing up. But we’ve got to keep working. That was the biggest thing. We’ve gotta be there for each other, gotta keep working. We’ve still got a goal, still got a mission … That’s your ‘why’ now, you know? And we’re gonna be honoring Dom with everything that we do from now on.”

, whose “Go-Go,” high-tempo, option scheme was expected to be the subject of the day, instead talked about Ponder’s impact, fighting back tears valiantly as he went.

“(Other Buffs) saw how hard (he) worked, how hard he wanted it,” Marion said of Ponder, whom he’d only known a few months. “To prove that he could play at the collegiate level and be a college quarterback.

“In an era where you have to force people to work hard, you had to tell Dom to stop working so hard. Just being around a kid like that, his energy was contagious as far as his work ethic.”

Marion admitted that those 5:30 meetings wouldn’t be the same without Ponder already there, ready and waiting to go to work.

“He flash-carded my whole entire playbook that we gave him,” Marion said, marveling at the attention to detail. “I mean, he flash-carded every play.”

Ponder picked up one of CU’s freshman quarterbacks and brought him to practice. The Buffs have a ton of new faces, old and young alike. People knew they could go to Dom for help. Dom would set them straight.

“We have the type of group that adversity won’t break us. It’ll help us break records,” Marion said. “So I know that we’ll find a way to get through it and and and honor Dom in the way that we work every day.”

CU running back DeKalon Taylor had just left church on Sunday when he heard about the crash.

“I (felt) like I got hit by a train, almost,” Taylor said.

Still. They practiced. They even said his name when they broke the huddle on Monday.

DOM!

“It was almost like a boost of energy,” Taylor recounted. “Like he was there with us.”

He always will be. Marion said that the QB room would keep a seat open in Ponder’s name. Team leaders are discussing a more permanent memorial for the upcoming season.

“He always was joking, playing around, and that’s just kind of what we’ve got to do this season, kind of just (be) playing for Dom,” cornerback RJ Johnson said. “Just not taking anything that we go through this year for granted. Because you never know when it’s your last time you can step on the field and put those cleats on.”

Marion had been playing with his son on Sunday when Ponder’s father called to tell him what happened.

“And I just stopped,” the coach said. “I couldn’t move. And my son’s like, ‘Daaaaaaad!’ And I’m like — I was speechless talking to Dom’s dad.”

Eventually, the tears won.

“We’ll just save a spot for him in the room,” Marion said, voice cracking.

The Buffs have their “why.” The next nine months are about building a “how” to sail them the rest of the way, the wind and Dom at their backs.

A few days back, One picked Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell, whom I’m amazed still has his job. Another took Lincoln Riley at USC. A third chose Deion Sanders at CU.

Pressure?

No question. That 3-9 doesn’t go away.

Hot seat?

Not the way Sanders’ contract is structured.

If terminated without cause, Coach Prime is owed 75% of all of his remaining base supplemental salary through 2029. Which means the Buffs would be on the hook for $33 million this year; $25.5 million in 2027; $17.25 million in 2028; and $9 million in 2029.

Boulder’s not a drinking town with a football problem. It’s a drinking town with an accounting problem.

CU has confirmed multiple reports that project its athletics department was, as of December, on a pace to finish the ’25-26 fiscal year with a $27 million deficit.

Sanders landed a $5-million raise a year ago. He’s slated to make about $10 million this season. That five-year, $54-million extension celebrates its first birthday in a few weeks.

Which begs the question: Was it worth it?

, only 13 FBS coaches at public schools were paid more than Sanders last year. Of that club, Brian Kelly was 5-3 when he was fired by LSU midway through the year. Mark Stoops went 5-7 and was fired by Kentucky after the season.

Among the coaches who collected the sport’s top 15 salaries last fall, only Sanders (3-9), Stoops (5-7) and Bill Belichick (4-8) had losing seasons. The latter was in charge of a college program for the first time. It showed.

But outgoing Buffs athletic director Rick George has been at this a long time. He should know better.

Why, 11 months after the fact, does it feel as if George was pretty much bidding against himself last winter when it came to Coach Prime’s services?

The Cowboys? Come on. Yeah, Jerry Jones is wacky enough to try anything once. But Sanders grasps the politics of an NFL locker room and the mindset of NFL veterans better than anybody. His approach wouldn’t land the same with grizzled adults.

ESPN? Maybe. That off-ramp is always there, though. Sanders is ratings gold, a TV master, and he knows it. Disney gave Pat McAfee a five-year, AAV deal of $17 million in 2023. The Mouse will pony up for personalities that bring eyeballs.

Another college, though? Not likely. It’s hard to picture many major collegiate athletic directors giving Coach Prime the power/perks/protection/political capital he covets. CU had an empty throne and a lonely, waiting crown.

Was it worth it?

George and CU didn’t really have a choice, did they? Not when it came to an extension. A hot coach always commands some gesture of good faith, even if it’s symbolic.

After last fall went so badly off the rails, the wiser play for the Buffs surely would’ve been to wait until this year to re-negotiate — to see what a post-Shedeur/post-Hunter roster looked like.

Or perhaps the school could’ve offered a 50% raise for 2025 after 2024’s 9-4 record, instead of basically doubling Sanders’ pay ($5.7 million two seasons ago) right from the get-go. Stagger those incentives.

Hindsight, alas, is for suckers and columnists. The Buffs, who open spring ball Monday, are full-speed ahead at pretending 2025 didn’t happen — so much so, in fact, that nearly half the roster, both coordinators and a chunk of the coaching staff are brand new.

For months, CU faithful wanted changes. Wise-cracking scribes wanted changes. Sanders listened. Or someone told him to listen.

Coach Prime replaced offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur with Brennan Marion — a move widely considered an upgrade, if simply for the fact that Marion isn’t Pencil Pat.

The more surprising turns came a few days ago. This past Tuesday, The Post’s Luca Evans, among others, reported that CU’s wonderboy defensive coordinator, Robert Livingston, was leaving the Buffs to join the Broncos as defensive passing game coordinator — largely the same position he’d held with the Bengals before coming to Boulder.

The plot thickened later in the week when CU confirmed reports that longtime Sanders friend and confidante Warren Sapp, who was elevated to defensive pass rush coordinator in ’25, had resigned from the program.

Sanders is on his third defensive coordinator and third offensive play-caller since March 2023. Ordinarily, $10 million is the kind of money a university typically pays for Saban-like stability — not volatility.

CU just doesn’t have the money to buy out big mistakes. Or even little ones, frankly.

Was it worth it?

The Buffs remain a mandatory selection for TV executives, almost entirely because of Sanders. Although from mid-November 2024 to mid-November 2025, reported broadcast ratings for Buffs games had dipped 44%. Irrelevant football is irrelevant football, no matter who’s coaching it.

Enrollment of black students at CU-Boulder in fall 2025 was up 13.8% over fall 2024. Undergraduate enrollment and out-of-state undergraduate enrollment jumped in ’23-24. These are all good things. Football is a school’s best marketing front porch.

The Buffs reported $31.216 million in 2023 football ticket revenue to the NCAA; CU’s 2024-25 report, released last month, said football ticket sales brought in $24.026 million during the 2024 campaign.

The website Oddspedia.com recently . Assuming that’s reasonably in the ballpark, it would mean CU athletics lost $1.6 million off ticket sales during its final two home games of last season when compared to its last two home contests in 2024.

Meanwhile, the Buffs listed a departmental profit of $8.24 million in ’23-24. And all of that was before the House vs. NCAA ruling went into effect — which will account for an additional $20.5 million in expenses for student-athlete revenue sharing in ’25-26.

Was it worth it?

Ask us at Halloween. What limited history we have to go on says the Buffs, and Sanders, will be better this fall. For sanity’s sake, they’d better be.