Pat Shurmur’s offense sent Teddy Bridgewater to the hospital. There are times you wonder, honestly, if Deion Sanders, coach, spends enough time talking to Deion Sanders, father of his best offensive player.
Because none of this co-offensive coordinator switcheroo makes a lick of sense. Unless the point is getting embattled CU offensive line coach Bill O’Boyle, who got thrown under the bus by Coach Prime weeks ago, out the door with cause.
But trying to get O’Boyle’s pal Sean Lewis, the only Buffs coordinator who’s held up his end of the bargain this fall, to quiet quit as well? Brother, that takes some serious stones. Or a serious lack of self-awareness. Or both.
On one level, you kinda get it. When the offense hits a wall — as it did in the second half of the Stanford game and the first three quarters of the UCLA tilt — it’s time to roll the dice. Desperate times and all that.
But come on, Coach Prime.
Pencil Pat?
When last we left Shurmur calling plays, his 2021 Broncos ranked 23rd in the NFL in scoring (19.7 points per game), 19th in sacks allowed (2.4 per game), 22nd in sacks allowed per dropback (6.9%) and 13th in rushing (119.1 yards per game). His 2020 Broncos offense ranked 28th in scoring (20.2 per game). If the point is mixing in everything Lewis is not, congrats.
One of your units ranks 122nd out of 130 FBS schools in its most important statistical category (points allowed) and 129th in the second-most important (yards given up).
And you effectively demote the other coordinator?
From a gameday perspective, Sanders is probably pointing fingers in the wrong direction. But for all his defense’s (many) foibles on the field, coordinator Charles Kelly was 247Sports.com’s national recruiter of the year in 2023. Sanders has made no secret about the formula and the master plan. Coach Prime will live with the misfires on Xs and Os if you’re bringing him the Jimmies and the Joes.
Still, knee-capping Lewis, whose offense heads into Saturday night’s Oregon State game 32nd nationally in points per game (32.1) and 55th in yards per tilt (408.6) reeks of midseason desperation. For Sanders, though, it’s old hat. He hired his old Falcons teammate Jason Phillips to be his co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach at Jackson State back in January 2021.
Four games in, things … changed. From Jean-Jacques Taylor’s report for Andscape on Oct. 15, 2021:
“Deion Sanders didn’t like Jackson State’s offense the first four weeks of the season.
“The Tigers couldn’t run the ball consistently or control the line of scrimmage, and they struggled to score.”
Sound familiar?
Deja, meet vu.
The story continues:
“They were 3-1, but Sanders didn’t believe the offense was moving in a direction that would take the Tigers to the Celebration Bowl and beyond, so he changed playcallers during the bye week from wide receivers coach and co-offensive coordinator Jason Phillips to T.C. Taylor.
“It had nothing to do with a person not doing the job,” Sanders told Taylor. “I thought (Taylor) was ready. He stepped up to the challenge and did a phenomenal job.”
And here we are. Again.
Speaking of deja vu, in the first game after the switch, Sanders’ Tigers ran for 247 on the ground, racked up 496 total yards and whupped Alabama A&M 61-15.
Over its last eight regular-season games, Jackson State rolled downhill, winning all eight and averaging 34 points per tilt. The party came screeching to a halt in the Celebration Bowl, though, when JSU hit the skids with a 31-10 loss in Atlanta against South Carolina State.
I’d advise Pencil Pat not to get too comfy. A week after that Celebration Bowl setback, Sanders introduced Brett Bartolone as his new OC. When ESPN showed up to cover Prime’s spring game — yeah, we’ve been there, too — in April 2022, he said this on-air:
“They pretty much were calling out our darn plays last season, we were that darn predictable,” Sanders told the network. “If you have a run game, that means you’ve got an option and you’re not predictable.”
All true. But if Shurmur is the answer, coach, you’re asking the wrong questions. In the meantime, if I’m Shedeur Sanders, I’m digging into Bridgewater’s game tape from two years ago and practicing the holy heck out of my incompletions. Just in case.