Deion Sanders saw Baylor's defensive alignment, the game's last snap imminent, and silently nodded an assent to Dave Aranda's approach.
Then, Coach Prime saw his star quarterback, Shedeur Sanders, the head man's son, rolling closer to the Buffaloes home sideline and wondered to himself what on earth the opposition was thinking.
After LaJohntay Wester gathered Shedeur Sanders's pass inches from the earth and Micah Welch scored what proved to be the game-winning touchdown in the opening possession of overtime, Sanders asked in his postgame press conference what many were thinking.
"First of all, I seen them load us up to our right side and I'm like, 'OK, that was really smart,'" said Coach Prime after his team's 38-31 win to kick off Big 12 play. "Because now he's going to have to move to his off throwing hand. You don't want a right-hand quarterback rolling to his left, so that was very smart on their behalf.
"But as I looked at it, the whole team was over there on Travis (Hunter), and you got LaJohntay. How is there a 1-on-1 in that situation? First of all, let's just dial it back to a couple plays. We should have had that one (a dropped pass). You guys know what I'm saying, right? We should have had that one. It was a 50-50 ball; we should have had that one.
"But we caught the one that we needed to catch. LaJohntay needed it as well. It was a great confidence-booster for him. It was tremendous. It kind of threw us back to last year a little bit, didn't it? Like that nostalgia. That was the way stuff was starting out last year. Like, I'm already gray (hair). What you trying to do to me, fellas? It was a tough one, but I'm excited. This press conference could be totally different right now. I'm excited that we won."
Colorado statistically dominated the game, outgaining the Bears by nearly 120 yards and holding possession more than 12 minutes longer. But it took all of Shedeur Sanders's 341 passing yards and Hunter's two-way heroics to seal the win and give Colorado back-to-back 3-1 starts.
It was Hunter who forced a game-winning fumble at the goal-line that saw the ball carmon out of bounds and the play stand up to video review by officials.
"I don't like how it played out but I love the results," Deion Sanders said. "I think we're so much better than what we're showing you at times. We keep showing you glimpses of running game and we show you glimpses of us playing hard-nosed, tough football defensively. We show you we can throw the ball around and then we just stall for a series or two and surrender something foolishly.
"One step closer to getting Ms. Peggy (the Buffaloes' elderly super-fan) to a bowl game, so I'm proud of that."
And though Prime didn't like that Colorado fans who stormed the field denied him the opportunity to shake hands postgame with Aranda, he did praise the passionate group.
"I don't like what transpired at the end of the game, but I love what transpired at the end of the game," he said. "We have a fan base that's phenomenal. Kids on this campus that loves and breathes CU football and I'm thankful.
"I mean I walk the campus every day and they give us so much love and respect and honor."
Colorado will try to match its win total from last season when it travels for its first Big 12 road test next week at Gus Malzahn's UCF program.