UCLA Football Preview: Will Deion Have Buffs Ready for Prime Time?
UCLA Football Preview: Will Deion Have Buffs Ready for Prime Time?
Coach Prime is certainly changing college football.
When Mike Leach passed away suddenly last year, one of the most interesting personalities in college football was lost. But only days before Leach’s passing, the Colorado Buffaloes made the splashiest hire of the year when they announced on December 3, 2022 that Deion Sanders would be Karl Dorrell’s replacement.
Known as “Prime Time” during his playing days, Sanders has since adopted a nickname requiring more respect as a coach. “Coach Prime” will bring the Buffs to the Rose Bowl this Saturday to face the Bruins in a game which is set to kickoff at 4:30 pm PT.
It’s been a bit of a circus since Sanders arrived in Boulder. The Buffaloes were one of the worst teams in the FBS last season, and no one can deny the fact that Sanders is bound and determined to make his team better as quickly as possible, but Colorado has had six of their first seven games televised nationally this season which seems to be a little bit much for a team which went 1-11 last year.
To be sure, Sanders and staff have gone about the process of rebuilding the once-proud Buffalo program by making Chip Kelly's use of the transfer portal seem insignificant in comparison. In fact, Coach Prime’s roster turnover makes Chip Kelly’s seem modest as well.
Back on the old site, I wrote an article about the talent drain which took place under Kelly during his first season. That article just looked at the turnover of Blue Chip players on the UCLA roster. I believe factoring in the non-Blue Chip players, Kelly had driven off at least 73 recruits during his first two seasons in Westwood.
That pales in comparison to Coach Prime who not only rescinded numerous scholarship offers to incoming recruits, but he also turned over the Colorado roster completely. According to the Deseret News, only 10 scholarship players remain from the 2022 Buffaloes. And, he brought in a total of 86 new players including 53 transfers.
So, he essentially did what Chip did in half the time.
On one hand, that’s impressive. On the other, it seems unfair to the student-athletes who committed to play for Colorado.
It also throws the typical model of building a program under the bus.
The fact that it has allowed Colorado to quadruple last season’s win total already means that this extreme turnover model may become the norm and, while that’s good for the business of college football, that’s not very good for the college in college football.
It seems appropriate that this weekend UCLA will celebrate homecoming.
That’s because Colorado’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach is a guy with a few UCLA ties, even though he’s never coached West of Boulder. The Buffs’ offensive coordinator is Sean Lewis.
From 2018 to 2022, Lewis was the head coach of the Kent State Golden Flashes. That means he was the head coach for current UCLA quarterback Collin Schlee when Schlee was Lewis’ quarterback.
Lewis was also previously the co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for Syracuse under former UCLA assistant Dino Babers.
Meanwhile, Coach Prime’s defensive coordinator has the same name as a guy on the UCLA sideline, and I don’t just mean last name either. The Buffs’ defense will be called by Charles Kelly, which happens to be Chip’s legal name.
Colorado’s Kelly spent the past four seasons as the associate defensive coordinator and safeties coach for Nick Saban at Alabama, and he also spent four seasons as Jimbo Fisher’s defensive coordinator at Florida State from 2014 until 2017. With more than 25 years of coaching on the defensive side of the ball, it should be interesting to see which Charles Kelly gets the better of things when UCLA has the ball.
There are two more notable names on the Colorado staff, but both of them work in “quality control.” The first is former Dallas Cowboys cornerback Dennis Thurman who is the Director of Quality Control - Defense.
The other is former NFL head coach Pat Shurmur. Shurmur was the head coach of the Browns when Mike Holmgren was the team’s GM. He was also the head coach of the New York Football Giants in 2018 and 2019. Most interestingly, however, Shurmur was Chip Kelly’s offensive coordinator with the Eagles and he was the guy who became interim head coach when Kelly was fired by the Eagles in 2015.
Let’s look at the Buffaloes’ special teams.
Special Teams
Colorado’s depth chart lists the placekicker as either Alejandro Mata or ASU transfer Jace Feely. Feely seemed to have won the job in camp but seems to have lost it to Mata after missing a field goal in the Colorado State game. Feely is just 4-of-7 on field goal tries while Mata has made 4-of-5 since the CSU game. Mata has made 15-of-16 PATs while Feely is a perfect 10-for-10.
With Mata getting the start on field goals and PATs, Feely has continued to be the guy on kickoffs. He has kicked off 31 times this season with 16 of those going for touchbacks. Cristiano Palazzo has also kicked off nine time this season for Colorado, but he doesn’t seem to have the same range Feely does. Only one of Palazzo’s kickoffs has gone for a touchback.
Louisville transfer Mark Vassett is the Colorado punter this season. Vassett has punted 33 times with an average of 44.63 yards per punt and a long of 60. Eleven of his punts have traveled more than 50 yards and 12 of them have landed inside the 20. Eight punts have been fair caught while one went for a touchback.
While South Florida transfer Jimmy Horn has taken six of the team’s seven punt returns, he only has a total of 19 return yards. Xavier Weaver is the punt returner to look out for. He took his only punt return of the season against ASU and he broke it for a 51-yard return.
Dylan Edwards is the only member of the kickoff team who has returned a kickoff. He is averaging 20.25 yards per return on his four returns. His longest return of the season is just 24 yards.
Go Bruins!!!
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