Deion Sanders and Colorado can’t sleep at Texas Tech with Big 12 title dreams

For Coach Prime’s second band Buffaloes, it’s very simple. Keep winning and pray that one of Iowa State’s four opponents can take down the 17th-rated Cyclones. A road game at Utah and a home game in the season finale with No. 22 Kansas State are still on ISU’s schedule. The Improvements need the ‘Cats’ or someone else to demote the Cyclones.

Two setbacks have broken open the door of hope. Now the question becomes: can the Buffs kick it wide open? There are four games remaining, three against conference bottom dwellers Utah, Kansas and Oklahoma State. Lurking in Lubbock? The Texas Tech Red Raiders are coming off a shocking upset of previously undefeated Iowa State on the road. Tech is now bowl eligible and hungry for more.

The Big 12 was advertised in the preseason as one of the most unpredictable Power Four conferences. It wasn’t disappointing. BYU is undefeated but has yet to play Arizona State, currently 6-2, and Utah. The Utes are out this year after losing their talented quarterback Cam Rising, but would like to play the spoiler role against Colorado and BYU.

The Cougars were ranked 13th out of the conference’s 16 teams in the preseason polls, two spots behind the Buffs. Preseason prognosticators sniffed the Big 12 Conference, where the projected bottom-dwellers were in great position to play for the championship on Dec. 7 at Jerry’s World in Dallas.

All this craziness takes the old noggin back to the wild and crazy season of 1990. Hall of Fame coach Bill McCartney’s Buffs squad started 1-1-1. That wasn’t the plan, as most respected national pollsters expected Colorado to contend for a national title after the tragic but magical “One Heartbeat” season of ’89.

Why Deion Sanders doesn’t want Colorado to finish the season

Colorado opened the 1990 campaign with a tie against Tennessee in the Pigskin Classic. It was the “blowout party” for future NFL first-round draft pick Mike Pritchard. Game two was at home against Stanford and a last-second touchdown jump by Eric Bieniemy prevented a disastrous setback. Game three was a disappointing loss at Illinois, where the Buffs squandered an early 17-3 lead to lose 23-22.

I’ll never forget interviewing the downtrodden Buffs in a small and crowded locker room in Champaign, Illinois, after the crushing setback. Nearly every player or coach interviewed solemnly exclaimed, “We need to forget this ‘national championship’ speech and focus on winning the Big Eight.” It was similar to how Coach Prime and his players went after Nebraska.

Longtime Buff fans know what happened next. Colorado reeled off 10 straight wins, including a fifth-place finish at Missouri, and defeated Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl for the school’s only national championship. It was a split decision. The Buffs won the AP poll and undefeated Georgia Tech won the UPI Coaches poll (courtesy of Tom Osborne).

Deion Sanders questions whether the Texas Tech tradition is illegal before the showdown

There was no play-off system at that time. Georgia Tech’s ACC champion status didn’t stop the Yellowjackets from taking their No. 2 ranking to the Orange Bowl to face the automatic Big 8 champion in top-ranked Colorado for a decisive title game. But the Orange Bowl committee wanted Notre Dame instead of Georgia Tech as the Buffaloes’ opponent because Notre Dame had a larger fan base and would gain more money and better TV ratings. Money talks, then and now.

Back to the present. Watching Iowa State lose to Texas Tech at home and K-State lose on the road to Houston stirred up emotions for the 1990 team. It needed help, just like Prime’s team needs help now.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Texas Tech is coming off the emotional high of the rally late in Ames. Third-year coach Joey McGuire’s team will play in front of rabid home fans and would love nothing more than to deflate CU’s dream of an “incredible season.”

There are others trying to deflate the team. Coach Prime reportedly harped a lot about academics this bye week. “Discipline on the field, in the classroom, and everywhere else builds champions,” a kind of rhetoric. Makes your writer think of McCartney again. He always talks about “Love them after a heavy loss, but humble them when they fly high.”

The Buffs are on a rampage. Lady Luck has also shown up. Buff fans are hoping the Red Raiders don’t become CU’s dream raiders.