- The University of Colorado football team struggled through a 1-11 season in 2022.
- That led to the high profile hiring of NFL legend Deion Sanders as head coach.
- Following a Week 1 win over TCU, the betting public can’t get enough of the Buffs.
Well, that didn’t take long. Heading into the 2023 college football season, the University of Colorado was definitely one of the most intriguing storylines in the sport. Following a dismal 1-11 season in 2022, the decision was made to hire NFL legend Deion Sanders as the new head coach replacing Karl Dorrell who had been fired during the campaign. It is Sanders’ first coaching job at the FBS level following an impressive showing at SWAC entrant Jackson State. The Tigers went 27-6 SU during the ‘Prime Time’ era and the new coach wasted no time in ‘cleaning house’, completely revamping the roster and the coaching staff.
‘Coach Prime’ immediately brought some much needed excitement to the moribund program, but questions abounded about how long the ‘excitement’ would last once it ran headlong into the reality of college football. That still remains to be seen, but for now Colorado is the ‘toast of the town’ following a 45-42 win at TCU as +21 underdogs. The prevailing wisdom prior to the season is that the Buffaloes would be better, though that isn’t saying much for a team that finished 1-11 a year ago and has had only one winning campaign during the last 18 full seasons. The ‘prevailing wisdom’ is now out the window and Colorado mania is in full effect.
It’s expected that a long suffering program would be thrilled to have anything to cheer for. That’s been evident all along as the Buffaloes home games are actually selling out. If you follow the national sports media, there’s been wall to wall coverage of Colorado football this week heading up to their home opener against Nebraska. Nebraska opened as a -4′ road favorite, but the Colorado hysteria has moved the line to Buffaloes -2.5 or -3. What’s interesting is how the betting public is now all over the Colorado bandwagon. To what extent? Here’s some information on the public exodus to the Buffs and ‘Coach Prime’ provided by Tipico Sportsbook based on action in the states where they operate (Colorado, Iowa, New Jersey and Ohio).
- 5075% increase in handle on Colorado to win Pac-12 Championship after Saturday’s upset.
- 525% increase in handle placed on Colorado to win the CFP National Championship after Saturday’s upset.
- Odds to win Pac-12 Championship went from 100-1 at open to now 25-1 for Colorado.
- Odds to win CFP National Championship went from 200-1 at start to 150-1 for Colorado.
- 4.5% increase on Sanders to win the Heisman after Saturday’s upset while all of the handle on Travis Hunter to win the Heisman came following Saturday’s upset.
- Travis Hunter Heisman odds went from 200-1 to now 30-1
- Shedeur Sanders Heisman Odds went from 200-1 to now 35-1
To some extent, this isn’t surprising. The ‘public’ has a tendency to overreact to what they’ve just seen on television. The official name for this is ‘recency bias’. ‘Squares’ reflexively overreact to most recent performance, good or bad, and bet accordingly. The higher profile the event, the stronger the reaction and the ‘Coach Prime to Colorado’ storyline is arguably the biggest storyline in the NFL or college football this season.
Colorado could keep the party going for awhile. Nebraska is a very beatable team that is a long way from their dominant past and coming off seasons of 4-8 SU (2022), 3-9 SU (2021), 3-5 SU (2020) and 5-7 SU (2019) with a new coach in former Carolina Panthers field boss Matt Rhule. The Cornhuskers beat Minnesota last week but in his previous college stops at Baylor and Temple, Rhule’s teams got worse before they got better going 3-21 SU in his first two seasons. Following that, there’s another winnable home game against Colorado State coming off seasons of 3-9 SU (2022), 3-9 SU (2021), 1-3 SU (2020) and 4-8 SU (2019). Then it gets *real* serious really fast for Colorado with games at Oregon on 9/23 and home against USC on 9/30.
