‘My expectations are lofty’: Can Colorado bounce back to make a bowl game?
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Kyle Bonagura, ESPN Staff Writer
For the first time since Deion Sanders arrived at Colorado, the pressure is on.
Not that there isn’t a level of pressure felt by every college football coach, but Sanders arrived in Boulder with little in the way of outside expectations. Some of that came with the fact that he was inheriting a one-win team and some because he’s Deion Sanders, a beloved football icon who had earned the benefit of the doubt by entertaining fans for decades.
Either way, success at Colorado this year was never going to be measured in the way it will be at other Pac-12 programs like Oregon, Utah, USC or Washington. Still, Sanders laid out a high standard when he arrived and reiterated that Tuesday.
“My expectations are lofty,” he said. “So, you know darn well how the season is going with my expectations. It depends on your expectation. You can’t mix my expectation and your expectations because they don’t coincide. You know what mine are. I know where I feel like we should be record-wise and I know what we can accomplish.”
Safe to say, 1-3 in the Pac-12 isn’t the win-loss record he was referring to, even though his team’s 4-3 overall mark is better than what many outside observers had envisioned in August.
The pressure now, though, isn’t about preseason predictions. This pressure comes from how those expectations evolved and were espoused from within the program as the team started 3-0.
In a celebratory postgame news conference after Colorado upset national runner-up TCU to open the season, Sanders singled out ESPN’s Ed Werder — though he was merely chosen, seemingly at random, as a figurehead for any perceived doubter — and asked, “Do you believe now?”
He might as well have been speaking to the country. The clip made the rounds on the internet and served as an exclamation point on an impressive victory. It was a moment where it felt like Sanders demanded for the Buffaloes’ on-field performance to be held to a higher standard.
As in, I’ve been saying we are good. Here’s the proof.
That’s a dangerous game to play in college football after game No. 1, but after three wins to open the season, it was clear the Buffs were significantly better than a year ago. Not conference-contender better. More like, should-reach-a-bowl-game better.
In fact, a bowl game seemed like a safe bet. Since 2010 (not including 2020), 91% of FBS teams that started 3-0 reached bowl games.
But after the Buffs came back to beat Colorado State in double overtime to move to 3-0, safety Shilo Sanders was aiming much higher.
“We have the talent to be the best in this conference, in the country,” he said.
In a sport where players and coaches often cliché their way through news conferences, Colorado — led by Coach Prime and his sons, Shilo and Shedeur Sanders — embraced lofty expectations. It’s part of their appeal.
Phase I, the nonconference portion of the schedule, was an unmitigated success. A nearly unprecedented level of buzz was layered over an encouraging start on the field.
Since then, it’s been bad.
The Buffs’ 1-3 stretch to open Pac-12 play, Phase II, doesn’t need a full autopsy. It’s enough to know it was bookended by a 42-6 loss to Oregon and the biggest blown lead in school history (against a team that might not win another conference game) — Colorado’s double-overtime loss to Stanford heading into the bye week was so bad it made Sanders question his team’s desire.
“They gotta make up their mind, are they in love with this game or like it,” Sanders said. “When you love something, you give to it unconditionally. You give everything you got to it. But when you like it, that’s just a button you push.”
That once-promising bowl trip is looking less likely. ESPN’s Football Power Index gives Colorado just a 30% chance to reach the six-win mark necessary to reach the postseason. In its five remaining games, Colorado plays three ranked teams, starting with No. 23 UCLA at the Rose Bowl on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC), then has a home game against No. 11 Oregon State next week and a trip to No. 13 Utah for its season finale.
Its other two opponents — Arizona and Washington State — also have winning records. It’s an unforgiving road.
It’s especially daunting given Colorado’s deficiencies. The Buffaloes rank last in the country in total defense (473.7 yards per game). Only Stanford has a worse scoring defense than the Buffaloes among Power 5 teams (35.9 points per game). They rank No. 128 nationally in penalty yards per game (80.0).
On offense, Shedeur has put up massive numbers — he ranks No. 4 nationally in passing yards with 2,420 — but part of the reason he throws so much is that there is no running game to speak of. Colorado ranks last among Power 5 teams in rushing yards per game (86.3) and per carry (2.66). Sanders has also been sacked more times (34) than anyone at the FBS level.
That’s a lot to clean up, but coming out of the bye week, Deion expects progress.
Specific to the penalty issue, he said the coaching staff broke down where the problems have occurred and keyed in on those areas.
“We have addressed all of that and addressed the individuals that are consistently being penalized and how we’re going to improve that,” Sanders said. “We’ve addressed it tremendously. And you should see a tremendous improvement this Saturday.”
Here is where Phase III begins.
With tens of millions of eyes on the program, the Buffs went from overachiever to underachiever in the span of less than two months. The final five games will determine how this season is remembered.
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Chicago White Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi will miss four to six weeks with a broken hand after being hit by a pitch in a spring training game on Thursday.
Benintendi was hit on the right hand with an 87 mph fastball by Cleveland right-hander Logan Allen in the first inning and left the game. The White Sox announced the diagnosis as a non-displaced fracture, with no surgery required.
The recovery timetable means Benintendi likely will start the season on the injured list. The White Sox open at home on March 27 against the Los Angeles Angels.
Benintendi signed a $75 million, five-year contract with the White Sox prior to the 2023 season. After debuting with Boston in 2016 and helping the Red Sox with the World Series in 2018, he was traded to Kansas City in 2021. He won a Gold Glove that year and was selected for his first All-Star team in 2022, before being traded to the New York Yankees for the stretch run.
Benintendi matched his career high in 2024 with 20 homers but batted just .229, his worst average for a full season, excluding the pandemic-shortened 2020 schedule. He has played in 286 games in two seasons with Chicago.
Derek Bender, the former Minnesota Twins minor league catcher who is under MLB investigation for telling opposing hitters what pitches were coming, denied the allegations in an interview with The Athletic as he remains out of professional baseball.
“No,” Bender told The Athletic, in an interview published Thursday, when asked if he gave away pitches to opposing batters. “And I’ll live with this until the day I die. I never gave pitches away. I never tried to give the opposing team an advantage against my own team.”
Bender, a sixth-round draft pick out of Coastal Carolina in July, was playing for the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels, the Twins’ Single-A affiliate. In the second game of a Sept. 6 doubleheader, Bender told multiple hitters for the Lakeland Flying Tigers, a Detroit farm team, the specific pitches being thrown by starter Ross Dunn, sources told ESPN at the time.
Lakeland scored four runs in the second inning and won the game 6-0 to clinch the Florida State League West division and eliminate the Mighty Mussels from playoff contention. Fort Myers coaches were notified by Lakeland coaches about Bender’s pitch tipping after the game, sources told ESPN at the time.
Sources told ESPN that Bender had told teammates he wanted the season to be over. In his interview with The Athletic, Bender said he joked to teammates about letting a ground ball go under their glove, but said he wasn’t serious.
Major League Baseball’s investigation of the incident continues, according to The Athletic, and Bender could face a permanent ban from the league.
“I had to go dark for at least three days,” Bender told The Athletic of the reaction to the initial story. “I had to private all my social media accounts. I was getting death threats and awful, obscene things said to me.”
Bender, 22, said he is trying to get back into professional baseball. He said he’ll play for the Brockton Rox of the independent Frontier League this summer.
Meanwhile, Bender said he hasn’t heard from any of his former teammates, including Ross.
“There are a lot of times where you’re talking with people that you thought you were friends with, they just don’t look at you the same,” Bender told The Athletic. “I’ve heard my friends get questioned about me, why they’re still friends with me. That’s hard to hear.
“It’s not like I’m getting accused of committing a crime.”
Bender told The Athletic that the Twins were willing to keep him in the organization if he admitted to the accusations and apologize. He said he apologized, but he wouldn’t say what he was apologizing for.
“The only thing I had left was my character at that point,” Bender told The Athletic. “Literally, the way they put it was, ‘If you want to die by the sword, we’ll release you.’ I knew there was no bluffing involved.”
His agents at Octagon told The Athletic that they had dropped Bender as a client because they had told him not to do any interviews until the MLB investigation was closed.
“It’s about gaining control over my life,” Bender told The Athletic of why he did the interview. “And this whole situation. I’m not doing this as a last-ditch effort to get back into affiliate ball. It’s more of this is the start of me taking control of my life again. Because I’ve let this completely control me for months now.”
A catcher and first baseman selected with the 188th pick in 2024, Bender signed for $297,500, slightly below the $320,800 slot for that selection. He will keep the entirety of his bonus after playing 19 games for Fort Myers, hitting .200/.273/.333 with two home runs and eight RBIs.
In three seasons at Coastal Carolina, he hit .326/.408/.571 with 32 home runs and 153 RBIs in 144 games.
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Jesse Rogers
Chicago Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner won’t be going to Japan where the team opens the regular season next month, manager Craig Counsell announced on Thursday.
Hoerner, 27, is still recovering from offseason arm surgery and will miss the two games against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Tokyo.
“Its good news because we were very much tracking towards opening day — domestic opening day,” Counsell said. “So it stinks in terms of not getting to be part of the trip, but his rehab in the last couple of weeks I think really took a step forward and he’s starting to progress quicker.”
Hoerner had surgery on his right flexor tendon back in October. He’s on track for an April return — but not for the mid-March beginning of the regular season. The Cubs and Dodgers play games on March 18-19, but the teams will be in Japan for about a week, eating up precious training/rehab days for Hoerner.
“He can’t play in games there and he needs at-bats,” Counsell explained. “He needs to be a baseball player, and the trip just does not allow for him to that in the proper way.”
Hoerner will stay in Arizona, playing in minor league games while the Cubs are in Japan. Counsell indicated back-ups Vidal Brujan or Jon Berti will likely start in Hoerner’s place.
The team also needs to make a decision on third baseman Matt Shaw, who has been slowed by an oblique issue throughout the first month of spring training. Shaw is scheduled to see his first game action this weekend. If he can’t play in Japan, Berti or Bruján — along with Rule 5 pick Gage Workman — will be candidates at third base.
“Nothing is off the table for Matt,” Counsell said. “No decisions have been made there.”
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