Colorado again made headlines for a striking decision that woke the college football world up. The University of Colorado decided to retire Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter’s jerseys at their spring game on April 19th. Deion Sanders explained his reasoning for the decision that not only college football analysts and legends were upset about, but the University of Colorado legends as well. “We’re talking about Shedeur. We ain’t talking about nobody else. If his last name wasn’t Sanders, we wouldn’t have this discussion.”
As a journalist, that response wasn’t warranted from Deion Sanders because it negates the fact that this is nepotism and entitlement at its finest. Yes, the Sanders name holds a lot of weight, but it doesn’t deserve to be used as an excuse in this light. The bottom line is that this decision is made between the current head coach and the head athletic director. There is no doubt that both players were impactful on the program, considering that two years ago, they won one game. However, it has been two years since they arrived in Colorado, comprising an overall record of 12-13 with no bowl wins, playoff appearances, or conference championships to show for it. If taking a look at the numbers for Shedeur Sanders at Colorado alone, he compiled 7,364 career passing yards and 64 passing touchdowns. The numbers are great for two years, but besides the improvement in the overall record from the 2022-2023 season, Sanders’ biggest achievement was Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year and an 8th-place finish in Heisman voting. Hunter has a more legitimate case, considering he played a lot of snaps on offense and defense while being extremely impactful on both sides of the football. He also won a Heisman, but it is still an early decision that seemed to be made without consideration.
Here is the problem I see: there have been numerous all-time players who haven’t gotten a jersey retired, such as Marcus Mariota, Tim Tebow, Cam Newton, Jameis Winston, Leonard Fournette, Tyrann Mathieu, or Patrick Peterson. In terms of Colorado, Kordell Stewart had a winning percentage of 83.8 percent, going 27-5-1 in his career. At the time, he was done with his collegiate career, he was the Big Eight’s all-time conference leader in total offense. In other words, people who have made significant contributions to their programs had to wait their turn, so it isn’t fair that these two players rise to such a high honor when they haven’t even left the campus of Colorado yet.
