Last year USC beat Colorado 55-17. Diminishing what Deion has already accomplished in such a short time at Colorado by denigrating the teams he’s performed well against is foolhardy.
I figured Colorado would score on USC’s shitty defense. I didn’t expect Colorado’s defense to clamp down on USC’s offense as well as they did late in the game. They played them pretty close. You predict that USC will lose 3+ games. 3 games seems about right. They went 11-3 last year and this team seems pretty similar. The rest of the PAC-12 is better this year so USC probably isn’t making the CCG again.
Colorado’s next three are at ASU, Stanford, and at UCLA (after a BYE). Do you think they’re likely to do worse than 2-1 in those games? I don’t. They could win them all and be bowl eligible before November. They’re final 4 are OSU (Homecoming), Arizona, at WSU, and at Utah. I’ll bet they’ll win at least 1 of those games. Maybe 2. I think getting to a bowl is virtually guaranteed. Going 7-5 is certainly a possibility and might be likely. Going 8-4 would be beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.
You’re talking about a 3-loss USC. Surely you’d have to agree that if Deion turns a 1-win Colorado into a 4-loss team in one season, that would be astounding. 7-5 would be amazing. Just taking them to a bowl in his first year will be a resounding success. I’ll bet he’s got at least one more stunning upset win in him that no one saw coming. Funny thing about football, though, he might also have one stunning loss that no one saw coming too. But so far he’s won every game he’s been favored to win so his next upset loss will be his first.
There’s no way to rationalize away what Deion has accomplished in just a matter of months as anything less than a remarkable transformation. Going from a 55-17 loss to a 48-41 loss in one season isn’t something to dismiss out of hand like it didn’t mean anything. But it doesn’t matter what you and I think. It matters what the recruits think. I’ll bet they like what they see. I know yesterday was a big day for recruiting visits. I’ll bet it will be easy to sell them that they’re the missing pieces this team needs and to come to Colorado.