Colorado is changing quarterbacks, and Deion Sanders would rather you hear it from him than from the reporting. ESPN and CBS Sports both reported Monday that Isaac Wilson is expected to start Saturday against No. 12 Texas Tech, with Julian Lewis headed to the bench. Sanders spent his weekly press availability insisting he still needs to evaluate.
“We gotta reassess everything and see where we’re going,” Sanders said. That is less a denial than a coach buying himself four days before he says out loud what his staff has already settled on.
The Buffaloes are 2-2 after a 23-13 loss at Baylor in their Big 12 opener, a game that cracked the quarterback room wide open. Lewis threw for 75 yards in the first half and never came back out of the tunnel.
What The Numbers Actually Say
Lewis’ season line looks respectable on paper: 733 yards, six touchdowns, two interceptions and a 64.2 percent completion rate through four games. Strip out the FCS tune-up and it gets ugly. Against FBS competition he has averaged 5.1 yards per attempt, which is checkdown territory for an offense that needs explosive plays to survive.
Wilson replaced him in Waco and immediately started pushing the ball downfield, finishing 12-of-25 for 156 yards and a touchdown while dragging Colorado back into a game it had no business being in. The Buffs tied it early in the fourth quarter before the bottom fell out. That stretch was the most functional the offense has looked against a real defense all season.
Sanders was blunt about both of them. “Isaac came in a little shaky, nervous, I don’t know what. Then he calmed down a little bit, got us down the field, did his job,” he said. On Lewis, he was gentler but no less clear: “I told y’all he’ll be coming around the mountain, so what does that mean? He ain’t there yet. I can’t expect something out of you that’s not in you. That’s not an insult.”
Start Wilson, And Say So Today
Lewis was a top-10 recruit who reclassified into the 2025 class, and none of that matters on October 3 against a 4-0 Texas Tech team built to punish a hesitant passer. Wilson is a junior with real starting experience from his Utah days, and he has already shown he will throw into a tight window instead of taking the comfortable checkdown.
Sanders clearly wants to protect the kid, and that instinct is decent. “Don’t give up on JuJu. He plays with tremendous effort and tremendous heart,” he said. Effort was never the question. Lewis is reading college defenses in real time at 18 years old, and feeding him to a ranked Big 12 front does nothing to speed that process up.
The Bigger Problem Sits Above The Depth Chart
A 2-2 team hosting a ranked opponent with the Big 12 grind still ahead does not have room for a developmental season at the most important position on the field. Sanders took the blame for the midgame hook himself, saying, “I’ll take the responsibility. It’s a decision that I made because I was trying to get us going.”
He should own the next decision the same way, publicly and early in the week. Quarterback questions that linger into Friday walkthrough are how locker rooms start to split. Name Wilson, tell Lewis the job is his in 2027, and go play football.
One subplot worth circling on the calendar: Wilson draws Utah, the program he transferred away from, in Week 7. Getting past Texas Tech comes first, and right now that is the only quarterback question that matters.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.