BZ: FB - CU Buffs football season tickets sold out for second consecutive year

CU AD: FB - CU Sells Out Season Tickets For Second Straight Season

CUATG Blog: FB - Preseason Magazines - ESPN post-spring Top 25: Utah the Big 12’s best chance at a playoff berth

CUATG Blog: FB - CU sells out season tickets for second year in a row (single game tickets go on sale Tuesday) + SINGLE GAME TICKETS + 2025 WAIT LIST + STUDENT TICKETS

CBS Sports: FB - Inside the college football NIL market: How much players at each position are actually getting paid

Essentially Sports: FB - “Overhyped Player”: Fans Pick Oklahoma Star to Sideline Travis Hunter For Major Feat Despite Quinn Ewers’ Endorsement

On3: FB - Pete Thamel evaluates key area Deion Sanders must improve as coach

Buffs Wire: MBB - Projecting Colorado men's basketball's 2024-2025 starting lineup

Cheers!

Funny that KU is in there but they will not win 5 games

While we’ve been watching the mass exodus of CU players to the portal (17 at last count,) CU fans have been saying “College football can’t sustain this,” and “This is crazy. It’s NIL-driven.” That’s been the chorus on this board, and also on other CU forums and among CU fans in general.

Now, let’s talk a little reality.

I had asked Nikki and our Rivals mods how CU compares so far with other schools with player losses during this Spring portal opening, but heard no reply. So, I put some numbers together by myself, and they’re sobering. Totally sobering.

We’re sitting here as CU fans in a bubble with our 17 players who have jumped in the spring portal. Why? Because CU is a total outlier. Other than Houston (15 spring portal losses so far,) not one P4 team I checked has half that many. Here’s what things look like nationally and in the Big-12 so far with spring portal losses:

Spring Portal Losses, Key National Teams:
Zero: Clemson, Florida, UVA
One: Oregon, UCLA, Tennessee
Two: Ohio St, Michigan, UNC, PSU, Georgia, Nebraska, Wisconsin
Three: Auburn, USC
Four: A&M
Five: Va Tech, Miami
Six: Texas, Washington
Seven: LSU

Spring Portal Losses, Big-12 Teams:
Zero: Oklahoma St
One: WVU, Baylor
Two: KSU, ISU
Three: TCU, BYU, ASU, Arizona
Four: Texas Tech
Five: UCF, KU
Six: Cincy
Seven: Utah
Fifteen: Houston
Seventeen: CU

Many CU fans have been saying that the portal is devasting teams, that recruiting out of high school just means losing players the following year, and that college football can’t sustain this. But let’s come back to reality. College football is ruled by a combination of ESPN/FOX and a small contingent of something like six power-brand schools – Ohio State, Georgia, Texas, Michigan, USC, and PSU, and maybe a few others. Add all of the spring portal losses for those six schools, the total sum, and you still don’t have the losses experienced by just one -- the Colorado Buffaloes.

Oh, we can tell ourselves that the Buffs haven’t been losing that many starters, real contributors. But we’re back-peddling, looking for excuses. The reality is that the shock and pain and dismay around CU as we’ve seen another mass portal exit has not been experienced by the powers of college football during the spring portal.

With our current coach, we’ve bought ourselves into a football revolving door that other schools have avoided, even with NIL. As Coach Prime University (nobody calls Bama “DeBoer U,” or The Ohio State “Ryan Day U”) we’ve given up continuity and connection for chaos. A total annual free-agency. That's what's not sustainable.

The bottom line: Yes, we can expect some tweaking of the portal and NIL among power schools (the basketball schools want it,) but it won’t be driven by the football bluebloods, and it’ll focus more on NIL than on the portal. The football portal is CU’s issue. Sanders wants to win before his kids leave, and he's willing to re-stock with cast-offs from other schools to try to get there. But the portal and spring portal exits, is hardly noticeable in Gainesville, Columbus, State College, College Station, Ann Arbor, or Tuscaloosa. It's not a huge issue other than in Boulder, Colorado.

Amos was a 1,000+ yard rusher last season at Miami (OH), had flipped from Mississippi State to CU earlier in this cycle. Now officially off to Ole Miss.

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Not a lot of attention was paid to Nikai Hill-Green's transferring to the Buffs. This fellow is a quality person and quality athlete. If he doesn't get injured - it will be hard to take him off the field as a MLB. Uniquely, Kai transferred out of the Mich. program one year prior to the National Championship - to follow his favorite coach to a HC opportunity in Charlotte. I think he was very thoughtful with answers to interviews I have seen him give. He and Bentley appear to be the starters in the middle.

The spring transfer portal window is open and will remain so for 15 days allowing non-graduate transfers an opportunity to enter their name into consideration for a transfer. After April 30, any non-graduate transfer will not again be permitted to enter the transfer portal until after the season.

As has been expected, Colorado is again active with roster turnover as several players have already entered their names into the portal. The Buffs are expected to be heavily involved in adding players from the portal once again, and we will keep track of both in this thread as the next several weeks play out.

If you ever need to look at the big picture, @Nikkieds has continued to update the overall offseason transfer thread pinned to the top. So make sure you're still checking that out as well for more updates.

Spring departures

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I mean he didn't skip a team meeting to do it, and it's not in Paris... But still it seems similar in the sense that if a kid that's advancing his personal fame and fortune, it's going to piss some people off.

Boyd is listed at 6-foot-7, 320 lbs and made three starts at right tackle last season.

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Had a 20 point lead, lost their gas

“This year is gonna be different,” Seaton said.

Jordan Seaton and the O-line aim to solve last season's pass pro deficiencies ⬇️

Don't lose hope! Losing Cormani hurts. But it isn't the end.

We still have a great group of young players we are developing, like Ryan Staub, Dylan Edwards, Omarion Miller, Omarion Cooper, and Carter Stoutmire. And don't forget the young players that haven't seen the field much yet, but have enormous potential, like Adam Hopkins, Asaad Waseem, Taje McCoy, and Victory Johnson. Not to mention a really good group of players coming in, like Jordan Seaton, Brandon Davis-Swain, Dre'lon Miller, Kamron Mikell, Micah Welch, and Eric Brantley.

And I haven't even mentioned the new transfers like, Tyler Johnson, Justin Mayers, Quency Wiggins, BJ Green, Anquin Barnes, Chidozie Nwankwo, Preston Hodge, Cordale Russell, Will Sheppard, Yakiri Walker, DJ. McKinney, Kahlil Benson, Samuel Okunlola, Taurean Carter, and Walter Taylor.

Mix those in with current players like Shedeur, Travis, shilo, Alton McCaskill, Javon Antonio, Jimmy Horn, Shane Cokes, and Camron Silmon-Craig, and we have a very competitive team.

We still have holes at LB and TE. Let's see who we get from the portal, and let's see how the offense scheme is imporved.

It was a tough day losing Cormani. He was part of the grand scheme and he will be missed. But life goes on. And we have a lot to be excited about.

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Long snapper Kameron Hawkins, formerly of Arizona, has announced his transfer to Colorado this afternoon. Hawkins was a scholarship guy at Arizona and considered one of the top prospects at his position coming out of high school but never quite had an opportunity to do much in four seasons in Tucson. He’ll head to CU with two seasons of remaining eligibility.

. . . Trust Prime.