Lucas Boland/The Coloradoan / USA TODAY NETWORK
People can’t get enough of Coach Prime.
Deion Sanders has turned the Colorado Buffalos into must-see TV, bringing in a growing celebrity fanbase and massive TV ratings with every game. Colorado football was a dormant program a year ago, finishing with a 1-11 record and failing to exceed five wins in every season since 2016. That all changed with the arrival of Coach Prime from Jackson State, who remade the roster in the transfer portal and quickly turned the Buffalos into the most exciting team in the country.
Colorado remains unbeaten through its first three games. It won a thriller at TCU to start the year, beat Nebraska in its home opener in Week 2, and then outlasted in-state rival Colorado State in a sloppy but dramatic Week 3 win. The Colorado State game didn’t start until late into the night, but still put up one of the best TV ratings in the history of college football on ESPN.
According to ESPN PR, Colorado-Colorado State was the fifth most watched college football game on record, and shattered the previous mark for “late prime time” viewership.
Even after 2 a.m. on the East Coast, as Colorado was putting the finishing touches on their OT victory, they still had more than one million more viewers than the next most-watched college football game of the week.
Want to hear an amazing Colorado-CSU TV stat?
At 2:15amET, the game still registered 8.230 million viewers – an audience that was more than 1 million viewers bigger than the peak audience of any other CFB game this week.
— John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) September 19, 2023
People are glued to their TVs watching Sanders and his son Shedeur Sanders, Colorado’s starting QB. However, that only captures a little bit of the Coach Prime effect. It only took one look around the stadium in Week 3 to see so many famous faces who would never be troubled with going to a Colorado football game in the past.
As ESPN’s College Game Day came to Boulder, celebrities showed their support for Sanders. Lil Wayne, Offset, The Rock, Key Glock, Master P, Kyle Lowry, and former Colorado basketball star Chauncey Billups were each in the house to cheer on the Buffs.
Colorado’s offense can put up points in a hurry with the younger Sanders at quarterback. Their defense is still spotty, and now they’re missing superstar two-way player Travis Hunter to injury for the next few weeks.
Things are about to get difficult for Colorado with a game at Oregon this Saturday. Oregon is a 21.5-point favorite. Can Coach Prime shock the world again? You can bet the entire country will be glued to the television to find out.
