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Colorado did not need another headline this week but it got one anyway.
In the same stretch where Coach Prime doubled down on belief in the long game and insisted he has not forgotten how to coach in a year and asked fans for a little more time to prove it. However, the Buffs future somehow grew even cloudier. Two 2026 commitments gone in 48 hours.
Two players (TE Gavin Mueller and S D’Montae Tims) who were supposed to be part of the rebuild, now are part of the exit list. What was already a thin class is now something much worse. It is a mess.
The timing only sharpens the sting. Because it was just weeks ago when Sanders delivered his most pointed message yet to recruits
Coach Prime message to fellow Colorado recruits:
“If you’re a Dog, you wanna come here and right the wrong. If you’re a cat, you look at the scoreboard and you run.”💯 pic.twitter.com/OktggVGJRR
“If you are a dog, you want to come here and right the wrong. If you are a cat, you look at the scoreboard and you run. Which one are you.” It was vintage Prime. Bold. Loud. Defiant. And yet this week, Colorado watched two more players run.
And the rankings twist the knife. As early signing day approaches, the three major services agree on at least one thing. Colorado is nowhere near where a Power Four program should be. ESPN does not even rank the Buffs because their board stops at 65. On 247 Sports, Colorado sits at number 95, buried beneath programs without Prime’s platform or spotlight or reach. On On3, the picture is not much brighter at number 76. The only Power Four programs they are currently ahead of are Oklahoma State and Virginia Tech. And with the Hokies back in the national spotlight after the James Franklin hiring, even that small bit of breathing room is fading fast.
And looming over everything is the one change Sanders cannot outrun. The new transfer portal calendar. His entire roster model has been built on turnover and splash additions and flipping half a depth chart in a matter of weeks. But that era is over now. There is no spring portal anymore. No second chance to reshape the roster. No April lifeline to fix what December and January miss.
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For Colorado, the real shopping period lasts from January 2nd through January 16th. Fourteen days to rebuild a roster that may lose more players than it signs. Fourteen days to identify and recruit and close on players who can contribute immediately. Fourteen days to fix the offensive line, the defensive front, and the developmental depth that simply does not exist. And the only prospects who can enter outside that window are those whose squads reach deep into the College Football Playoff or random guys kicked off their respective teams. That is not a strategy. That is a hope.
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Sanders keeps saying he just needs more time. Maybe he does. But the sport is not giving him any. Not with a class ranked in the 90s. Not with portal rules that shrink his margin for error to almost nothing. Not with roster holes that cannot be patched by speeches or cameras or lines about dogs and cats.
Time is the one thing he asked for.
It is also the one thing he is running out of.
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