Keeler: Deion Sanders’ CU Buffs look smart. Tough. Fast. But are they disciplined?

BOULDER — The old guard wasn’t worried about the Mid 12. Or the Nebraska trip. Or CSU and all those old wounds. Deion Sanders was eight points away from 6-6. Have the Buffs learned how to get out of their own way?

“If their penalty problems have been resolved, that, to me, is even more important than it was last year,” FOX Sports analyst and former NFL lineman Geoff Schwarz said of the Buffs, who open their season Thursday night at Folsom Field against plucky North Dakota State.

“So that’s always the (concern), I think, for college programs like CU. But it takes time. Especially because Deion hasn’t been a coach for a long time.”

Fine margins matter. Little things matter. You know what doesn’t get talked about nearly enough in CU circles? Last fall’s self-inflicted wounds. The correctable stuff. The coachable stuff.

“We do stuff the right way, honestly,” safety Cam’Ron Silmon-Craig told me. “We go in the locker room. Our coaches hold (us) up to a great standard of being not just good football players, but being a good man first. That’s what we preach.”

One of the wackiest images from a roller-coaster 2023 was then-CU defensive coordinator Charlie Kelly, against Stanford, hopping around the sideline like Yosemite Sam with a cartoon hotfoot. The Buffs were flagged for an illegal substitution four times that night, helping the Cardinals, who were down 29-0 at halftime, somehow escape with a 46-43 win.

Fine margins matter. Little things matter. A roster rooted in Sanders’ verities of being “smart, tough, fast, disciplined, with character” went out last fall and promptly led the Pac-12 in penalties per game (8.9) and in penalty yards per game (71.2). Start there.

When it comes to game management, it takes a village. Of the 10 full-time assistants on Sanders’ staff, per CU’s official site, seven are in new roles. A handful are doing this for the first time.

At offensive coordinator, there’s Pat Shurmur, whose legacy with the Broncos consisted largely of getting Teddy Bridgewater hurt, Vic Fangio canned and a refresher course on the importance of practicing incompletions. His counterpart on defense is young Robert Livingston, a highly regarded Mike Zimmer protege.

Both have strong, rock-solid NFL bona fides. But Shurmur is jumping into his first full campaign as a college play-caller. Livingston has never been a coordinator before coming to Boulder.

Fine margins matter. Little things matter. One of Sanders’ immediate winter talking points, and reasons for hope in 2024, was how many close games CU let slip away late last fall. Which was true: The Buffs were 3-5 in games decided by eight points or fewer last season, and 1-5 in league matchups that wound up being decided by one possession. CU went 0-3 in league play when they committed 10 or more penalties. In that Stanford heartbreaker, they got flagged 17 times. Against Arizona at home a month later, 11 more flags. Three-point setback. Three-point setback.

Flip two of those losses in CU’s favor, the Buffs go from 1-11 in 2022 to bowling in Coach Prime’s inaugural season. If Sanders isn’t named Pac-12 Coach of the Year, ESPN’s demanding a recount.