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Deion Sanders press conference after 27-20 loss to Georgia Tech

Deion Sanders press conference after 27-20 loss to Georgia Tech
originally appeared on The Sporting News

Colorado was dealt a 27-20 loss at home to Georgia Tech on Friday night. The Yellow Jackets overcame three first quarter turnovers to beat the Buffs in Boulder. Haynes King rushed for a career-high 156 yards, including a 45-yard game-winning touchdown run with 1:07 left. 

Kaidon Salter threw for 159 yards and a touchdown in his CU debut. As a whole, Colorado struggled on offense with 305 total yards with 5-of-13 on third down conversions. There was an expectation Salter would split time under center with freshman five-star Julian Lewis in the opener. However, that wasn’t the case for Pat Shurmur’s offensive game plan. 

The Buffs couldn’t muster much on the final drive of the game and will take the loss in their opener. King gave them fits throughout and couldn’t stop the run. Georgia Tech is the first ACC team in over a decade with three first half turnovers in a game that resulted in a win. 

For Deion Sanders, this is the first season-opening loss during his tenure at Colorado. Here’s Coach Prime’s comments after the loss at home (All times eastern). 

12:02 a.m. — Sanders on taking the walk with Isaiah Hardge: “I was in tears taking the walk with Hardge because he has that much love and compassion for me to say let’s take this walk. That was a wonderful moment.”    

12:01 a.m. — Sanders on what to improve by next week: “I’m still here. I’m not on next week yet. I’m still here. I’m still pressing. It’s going to be a minute before I flush this thing. So I’ve got to really think about this. Because I fault me more than anybody else. I’ve got to really see how I can improve to see that we’re on the right path of success.”  

12:00 a.m. — Sanders on the defense: “We’ve got to clean up all that. We just got gashed for 463 yard. (King) is looking like a Heisman candidate right now. We made that happen for him. We’ve got to do a better job collectively.  

11:57 p.m. — Sanders on what he learned about his team: “They didn’t quit whatsoever.” 

11:54 p.m. — Sanders on missing Colorado’s recently-retired live mascot Ralphie: “I’m not disappointed. Ralphie gotta do what Ralphie gotta do. Everybody in here has taken a day off. Give Ralphie some grace. She had a good run, right?” 

11:52 p.m. — Sanders on trying to gel with the offense: “We ain’t got time to gel. We’ve got to go right now. We don’t have time to try and gel. We had a whole spring and a whole summer to gel. We’ve got to go get it. We’ve got to do it right now.”  

11:50 p.m. — Sanders’ message to Salter: “Dawg, you’re a dual-threat… Do you know what that means? Use your legs. But he’s a great kid and he played his but off.” 

11:47 p.m. — On fixing the mistake: “We’re definitely going to be fine. I’m not concerned about that. We could’ve won that game. It’s not like we got our buts kicked. We could’ve won that game. They ran the heck out of the ball. They did that. But we had opportunities.” 

11:46 p.m. — Sanders asked about linebacker Martavius French’s outing: “It’s hard to applaud the defense when we gave up darn near 500 yards.”

11:44 p.m. — Sanders on being out there after cancer treatment: “It felt good. I don’t feel good right now, but I felt darn good during the game.”

11:42 p.m. — Sanders on poor clock management during final drive: “I think we got out-of-bound a couple times… So we didn’t have to take (timeouts). So that’s what transpired. We got out-of-bound I think on both sidelines and that’s what happened. After the first, we got a good play. We caught the ball I think nine yards. We got one yard to go. If you get the first down, the clock stops. So, it doesn’t make sense to really use your timeout in that sense.

“We were really trying to preserve them until we really needed them. I don’t want to go home with timeout. They do me no good. But you’ve got to be strategic as well. Just burning timeouts to burn them just so you guys don’t say nothing, that don’t make sense.”

11:40 p.m. — Sanders on the Buffs physicality: “There’s no way you can say you’re physical when you get your butt kicked like that.” 

11:40 p.m. — On Salter’s CU debut: “Kaidon played well. A couple time I thought he should’ve ran and he threw. I don’t want him to prove to us that he can throw the ball. We know he can throw the ball. We wanted you because he’s a dual-threat. We want him to be a dual-threat. But I don’t think we lost the game because of Kaidon Salter.”

11:38 p.m. — Sanders asked about King’s career-best rushing attack: ” He had a tremendous amount of opportunities. You keep going to the well, something is going to happen. They were committed to running their quarterback and making it happen.”  

11:36 p.m. — Deion Sanders on the loss: “We will do better next week.”  

11:34 p.m. — Sanders on the offensive struggles: “We missed a few play that we should of hit. Overall, You’ve got to give (Georgia Tech) credit. The coaches a heck of a game. They played a heck of a game. (Haynes King) started off horribly but he picked it right back up and did his thing. Hats off to him. He led his team o a victory. 

11:32 p.m. — Sanders on Georgia Tech’s offense: “We tried many things. We tried blitzing to fill every gap and couldn’t get the job done. They were much more physical than we were.” 

11:31 p.m. —  How the game played out: “We’ve got to be more explosive. More decisive on what we’re doing with the ball on offense. Defensively, we gave up 463 yards of total offense. They ran for 320 yards. You’re not going to win with those statistics”  

11:30 p.m. — Deion Sanders on loss to Georgia Tech: “That’s a tough one.” Especially after three turnovers and really not coming up with anything.”   

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