Deion Sanders back to ‘old him,’ sets modest goals for Colorado QB Julian Lewis

FRISCO, Texas — Deion Sanders is back to the old him. After a bout with bladder cancer that kept him away from his team for months last offseason, and even when he was with the Buffs, he was a different version of himself. 

“You don’t have your it, you don’t have that thing about you,” Sanders said on Tuesday at Big 12 Media Days. “Like when you’re sick, you still have to get your butt up and do what you had to do, right? But you still weren’t you, but you were there. You were you in flesh, but you weren’t you in thought process and thinking and the quickness and the being fleet of thought, and that’s where it was. So I’m putting that on me.” 

Sanders is trying to do more than just get his own mojo back. It’s on Sanders to figure out how to get CU back to the heights of 2024, where the team was a factor in the Big 12 Championship race into November. Colorado went 3-9 in its first season without Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders. They cycled through multiple quarterbacks (Ryan Staub, Kaidon Salter, and Julian Lewis) and struggled to find a true playmaker. Now Lewis takes over as the starter, and Sanders is taking a different tact with taking pressure off of his young signal-caller. 

“What I don’t expect, and this may sound crazy, but it’s real, because he’s a young kid, I don’t need my quarterback to lead us,” Sanders said. “I need my quarterback to do what we ask him to do. He’s 18, and we’re asking an 18-year-old kid to lead a locker room full of men; that’s not fair to him. But what I’m asking him to do: make the plays that should be made and do what’s necessary to be done, but you do not have to stand up in front of the team and hoo rah this, and hoo rah that, you do not have to run out of the tunnel first. You do not have to get on nobody’s butt, just do your job, man. That’s it.” 

Lewis is young. In a sport where transfer portal dynamics have made many starters fifth- and sixth-year seniors, if not older, Lewis won’t turn 19 until the end of September. He reclassified into the 2025 recruiting class and flipped his commitment from USC to Colorado during his 2024 high school season. 

Sanders admitted it is a totally different dynamic for him than when he had Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders, whom he called “once in a lifetime cats,” and it’s unfair to expect players to have the same thought processes and practice habits they did. Lewis takes over as a full-time starter with a different offensive identity under new coordinator Brennan Marion, purveyor of the GoGo offense, which uses shifts, unique formations, and multiple backs to create formational advantages. 

Protection has been an issue for Colorado throughout Sanders’ tenure, with the program being among the nation’s most sacked teams in each of his first three years. Protecting Lewis will be key as the young quarterback hopes to grow into his own. Sanders says he has nine offensive linemen he feels can start. Lewis will also have a new security blanket to throw to with Danny Scudero, one of the nation’s most productive receivers at San Jose State, who is now a Buffalo, and Sanders raves about him. 

“What hasn’t he brought should be the question. He brings his lunchpail to work every day. He has not missed one practice. Leader, dog killer, great young man, professional. I called Julian Edelman and say, ‘Look, man, this kid loves you. He is you to me. He has that same tenacity that Jules has, and I hate comps, but I had to call him myself and say, ‘Look, man, I want you to talk to this kid, because he’s from, you know, where you’re from in California.'” 

It’s Scudero who brings some of the leadership qualities to the offense that Lewis isn’t pressured to deliver, and he does it his own way. 

“He’s not yelling or screaming,” Sanders said. “He’s making plays, he’s working his butt off, and then the whole team says, ‘Oh my god, first in gassers, he’s first in this, he’s first in that, he’s gonna take no days off, no plays off, that’s just who he is. He’s not going to galvanize rooms. He’s not that kind of guy, but let a quarterback not be there ready to throw. You’ll hear it, because that affects him, which ultimately affects us.” 

How Scudero himself affects the offense will go a long way to determining if CU can get back on track. Last year’s offense struggled mightily for an identity. Scudero, a steady hand with nearly 1,300 receiving yards last season, could pair with Texas transfer DeAndre Moore Jr. to provide the explosive element that has been missed since the trio of Hunter, Lejohntay Wester and Jimmy Horn left after the 2024 season.