Colorado coach Deion Sanders said Tuesday that “a few guys” are no longer on the Buffaloes roster, a roster shake-up he tied to conduct detrimental to the team after a 41-7 loss at Northwestern and a broader pattern of behavior he said he failed to stamp out last season.
“It’s a few guys who are not on the team anymore,” Sanders said at his weekly news conference. “Just so you know.”
Sanders did not name the players or say how many were dismissed. The announcement came three days after the Buffaloes’ first loss of 2026, a lopsided defeat in Evanston, Illinois, that featured four turnovers, nine penalties and a 21-0 halftime deficit. Colorado is 2-1 heading into Saturday’s Big 12 opener at Baylor.
The comments that produced the roster news were not about scheme or quarterback play. They were about how some players responded when the game was over.
After Saturday’s game, Sanders said he saw players laughing as he walked behind them toward the locker room. He called the result a “flat-out butt-kicking” and made clear he did not share their mood.
Coach Prime said there’s “a few guys not on the team anymore” when asked about how players reacted after the Northwestern game pic.twitter.com/5nzMuTYNub
— DNVR Buffs (@DNVR_Buffs) September 22, 2026
“I don’t understand how in the world you can find joy, or you can find a laughing matter when I’m right behind you walking into the locker room,” Sanders said Saturday. “I don’t understand that, and I addressed it, and I’m going to put my foot in it, not on it.”
On Tuesday he followed through. Asked about those reactions, he confirmed the cuts and immediately widened the frame. The laughing, he said, was not a one-off.
“It’s never one [thing],” Sanders said. “Those guys could tell you, I’m the most loving and giving and forgiving man you could ever meet. But when you start being conduct detrimental to the team, that will set us back in things that you’re doing that you don’t care about the team — you care about you. I have a problem with that.”
He then pointed to 2025. Colorado went 9-4 and reached the Alamo Bowl in 2024, Sanders’ second season. Last year the Buffaloes collapsed to 3-9, including 1-8 in the Big 12, with multiple blowout losses. Sanders said he did not enforce standards hard enough then.
“A year ago, I didn’t put my foot down in it enough,” he said. “It lingered a little bit. Then it imploded. I’m not doing that. I’m not doing that anymore.”
The Buffaloes have now absorbed three losses of at least 34 points in their last eight games dating to last season. The Northwestern loss was the fifth-worst of Sanders’ Colorado tenure.
The post Deion Sanders on Why He Cut Players From the Team During the Season first appeared on BlackSportsOnline.
Comments