Deion Sanders guaranteed Colorado was going to respond.
After last week’s 37-21 loss at Kansas, the Buffaloes didn’t just respond Friday morning in Boulder, they obliterated the opposition. Colorado walloped Oklahoma State 52-0 inside Folsom Field to improve to 9-3 (7-2 in Big 12 play). It was Colorado’s largest margin of victory since beating Minnesota 58-0 in 1991.
More important than stampeding over the downtrodden Cowboys (3-9, 0-9), the Buffaloes kept their slim hopes for a Big 12 title game appearance alive. For the Buffaloes to earn a shot at playing for a conference crown, they need at least two of the other three teams sitting at 6-2 in the Big 12 — Arizona State, Iowa State and BYU — to lose on Saturday.
Those three teams all have a leg up on Colorado. ASU faces rival Arizona on the road Saturday, while Iowa State hosts Kansas State. BYU hosts Houston on Saturday night. Of the litany of scenarios still in play for several programs to get to Arlington, Texas, for the title game, much of the potential chaos begins with a BYU loss at home.
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Travis Hunter all but secures the Heisman
Colorado’s two-way phenom Travis Hunter was the front-runner for the 2024 Heisman Trophy before Friday’s regular-season finale against Oklahoma State. With a three-touchdown, one-interception outing in the dominant win, Hunter’s plethora of Heisman poses in the end zones in recent weeks seem prescient. Hunter had 10 receptions for 116 yards and three touchdowns in the rout and snagged his fourth interception of the season.
TRAVIS HUNTER WITH THE EARLY INTERCEPTION‼️
His Heisman Trophy campaign continues ➡️ pic.twitter.com/6JSXGICw9C
— ESPN (@espn) November 29, 2024
With the regular season now in the books, Hunter’s Heisman-worthy stat line will forever read as such:
- Offense: 92 receptions, 1,152 receiving yards, 14 receiving touchdowns and one rushing touchdown.
- Defense: four interceptions and a whole lot of quarterbacks avoiding the general area of No. 12.
The Heisman Trophy: all but delivered.
This won’t be Hunter’s last game in a Colorado uniform if the Buffaloes go bowling. Sanders said earlier this week that both Hunter and his son, Shedeur, will play in whatever bowl game Colorado is invited to next month.
“Our kids are going to play in our bowl game,” Sanders said again Friday. “Because that’s what we signed up to do. We’re going to finish. We’re not going to tap out because that throws off the structure of next season.”
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Nightmare ending to nightmare season
Just a few months ago, Oklahoma State was a trendy pick to not only win the Big 12 but potentially make the new 12-team College Football Playoff. Considering the way the Cowboys’ season just ended, it’s hard to fathom they were even in the conversation.
The 52-0 loss at Colorado was the largest margin of defeat in the Mike Gundy era. Oklahoma State lost its last nine games of the year after starting 3-0 and was the only Big 12 team to lose every conference game in 2024. Prior to the last possession of the game, when both sides deployed the depths of their own depth chart, the Cowboys had just 61 yards of total offense.
Defensively, Oklahoma State was the worst power-conference team in the country entering Friday’s finale. The lopsided loss will only compound the many issues facing the Cowboys as they enter a crucial offseason.
Before this disastrous campaign, Gundy, who is tied with Utah’s Kyle Whittingham for the second-longest-tenured head coach in college football, had just one losing season, his first back in 2005. In the 18 years in between, the Cowboys were near-locks to be bowl-bound.
Required reading
(Photo: Andrew Wevers / Getty Images)
