Colorado can't find the wins that made the Buffaloes of first-year coach Deion Sanders the talk of college football through the season's opening month.
Drama? The Buffaloes draw that like flies to their namesakes on a hot summer day.
In its first game since Coach Prime dramatically reshuffled the deck of his offensive coaching staff, Colorado sputtered as former NFL head coach Pat Shurmur ascended to the role of primary play-caller for the Buffaloes while Sean Lewis, the former MAC head coach hired to much fanfare to run Coach Prime's first offense, saw his role reduced.
Without a touchdown on its first 10 possessions and a mere 78 yards on its opening 40 offensive snaps, Colorado never led in a 26-19 loss to No. 16 Oregon State - a defeat that marked the third in a row for the Buffaloes, who also have lost four of their last five games.
Deion Sanders stood front and center on his staff shakeup -- though he offered few particulars on a night in which his son, star quarterback Shedeur Sanders, was sacked four more times -- 46 on the year -- and hurried on an additional seven pass attempts.
"I’m not going to disclose all my thoughts; my thoughts are my thoughts," said Coach Prime when asked when he had first contemplated benching Lewis as play-caller in favor of Shurmur, who had initially been hired into the Colorado program as an offensive analyst in an off-the-field role. "I’m not going to disclose when I make a decision to do something. Just know when I make a decision to do something, I don’t stumble or stutter and I don’t look back. It is what it is, and that’s what it’s going to be.
"I made a decision to help this team win. You guys don’t know all the intangibles just from the outside of the crib looking in. I got tinted windows and you can’t even see in the house but you’re making conclusions on what I should and should not do."
Sanders confirmed that Tim Brewster, among Colorado's veteran-most assistant coaches, had been shifted into an off-the-field role away from his post as the team's tight ends coach -- though Deion Sanders argued the semantics against having that move labeled as a demotion for Brewster.
"Yes, you’ve got to understand, you only get so many coaches in college football, so when you make a move like we made, that means someone has to … I don’t call it demotion, I say move," Coach Prime said. "I think everybody’s making the same amount of money. When you get demoted, that’s a hit on your check. It’s a movement that we had to make."
Though Deion Sanders emphasized the outside world has not seen everything that transpired to precipitate his move at offensive coordinator, Sanders also worked to thwart any negativity toward Lewis.
"We’re not going to demean Sean Lewis, we’re not going to take that tone," Sanders said. "Sean is a good man, I think he’s a good play-caller. We just needed change at the time, we just needed to try something else at the time and that’s what we did. I don’t look back on it, I don’t second-guess myself whatsoever. Because there’s more to it than what you may know, so let’s just trust the process. Let’s just trust the process.
"Sean is, we’re not going to demean any coach on this staff by any means. I don’t get down like that, I don’t move like that."
Coach Prime did praise his team's late-game response; the Buffaloes trailed 23-5 before they scored their only two touchdowns in a six-minute span of the fourth quarter when they tried to rally.
"We've got to make up our mind. We saw a wonderful story a couple days ago about cows and buffaloes," Sanders said. "When the storm comes, cows run from the storm, buffaloes run to it. I want them to make a decision which one they wanted to be.
"They chose to run towards the storm and they did a wonderful job and I was proud of them."
Coaching personnel wasn't the only move about which Sanders faced pointed questions. He also was asked about a player who has not been around the Colorado program.
"My focus is winning these games, man," Coach Prime said. "It’s not who shows up to practice, who doesn’t."