Deion Sanders’ response to leaked game plan comes as no surprise given his history

Deion Sanders rejected the need to be questioned about Colorado's play sheet getting leaked online. He based his assessment on the assumption that scoring on the first drive meant the leak was unsuccessful.

When pressed for clarification on whether he plans to investigate or even discipline any responsible party, Sanders dismissed it due to where we are in the timeline. Following a bye week, he has moved on from it all.

“Why would we? It's over,” Sanders told reporters on Tuesday. “Why would we do that? We probably know more than you think we do. But a ‘whole playbook’, c’mon man. It happens sometimes. I’ve seen that at the pro level as well as the collegiate level. If someone left it, they left it. It was a mistake.”

Sanders would go onto paint a picture of the other side of the perspective. What if he found a script of plays from the opponent? He claims he would not give it any credence, he simply wouldn’t trust that what he saw was accurate. Suggesting maybe this happens to reel in the coach viewing it as a strange form of gamesmanship.

While this might not make sense to the average fan, there is football player logic involved. It's born of the same thing that leads to players and coaches never believing a game can be won or lost on one play. You still have to line up and stop it. “When you get something like that, do you trust it?” Sanders asked. Suggesting, was that a dummy script or was that real?

It happens sometimes? Cheating happens sometimes. Players make the wrong decision sometimes. The ball gets turned over sometimes. Yet none of those aspects would be met with. Well, it happens sometimes. If the standard is the standard, shouldn’t such a standard apply to every aspect of the operation? Don’t take game plan specific materials into common spaces, for example.

Why would we, after the game was over? Because that’s the only time anything can be addressed. Yes, the Buffaloes lost that game and there’s no changing that outcome. However, investigations or disciplinary actions after the game are the only way to make any effort to prevent this from happening. Which was also true of the Rose Bowl theft, the Cam Skattebo post-game violence as well as the Henry Blackburn hit that could have ended Travis Hunter’s career.

He may have almost opened a door to an aspect of the game as well. The dummy script idea. Yes, there is the potential that the script found was a ‘dummy script’. To this point, it almost seemed as though interested parties may have felt the same way about that script.

How else does one explain a nationally ranked team scoring at least 14 points in each of their first four games, but was unable to put up more than three points vs. Colorado, who's extremely far away from a national ranking? Only to reach the seven-minute mark of the game and look like Texas Tech again, scoring 26 unanswered points.

Whether Joey McGuire and his staff had any idea of the script is almost immaterial to the conversation. If it really did happen and Sanders did not deny it, that is and should be viewed as a problem. Yet once again, Sanders is opting to do nothing and, based on that decision, nothing can be gained now.

Sanders again all but promised a different result against Utah, who are now one spot away from cracking the top 10. The Utes are averaging almost 43 points per game on offense, while holding teams to no more than 24 points. Coach Prime needs a win over a quality opponent to quiet the noise. There appear to only be three more opportunities to do that. No. 11 Utah this week. No. 18 Oklahoma State next week or No. 20 Houston on November 13.

Needless to say, Colorado will be the underdog for the second half of the 2026 season.

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