Why Colorado football is opening fall camp 100 miles outside of Boulder

The Colorado Buffaloes football program will be opening fall camp outside of Boulder. 

Deion Sanders is packing up with his team and heading south to Fountain for the first week of practices. 

"When I first got here, Coach Prime and his staff actually came to me and spoke a little bit about wanting to go somewhere for training camp," said Colorado athletic director Fernando Lovo. "When you talk about building that brotherhood and that trust, I think that's a big part of it. We explored a couple of different options, and I give all the credit to our football staff. They identified Colorado Springs, which is obviously big for us. We have a big footprint down there." 

This is similar to an NFL model with training camp being held away from team facilities. However, for a program that opted not to retain some top-tier talent due to financial commitment, this is another expense.

The latest decision adds to a philosophical shift in thinking for the program. While most other programs have been chasing big money highly-talented targets, Sanders has opted to pursue lower-rated talent that may be hungry for the big stage.The self-proclaimed ‘portal king,’ who built a quick reputation as the recruiter other teams need to be worried about, especially in the 11th hour of transfer and recruiting windows, is effectively standing down. The messaging from the program would suggest they wholeheartedly believe this approach will work.

This approach is not without logic. Most of the things that could have gone wrong last season did. The exhaustion from the coaching staff was noticeable. Week after week, saying the same things did not render different results. Sanders has always commented that NIL should come after the on-field results. Perhaps, he’s done waiting for big money players to produce.

Sanders has consistently claimed this offseason that he scouted every player that came to the program. Something his health prevented him from doing last offseason. The implication being, last year went the way it did because Coach Prime couldn’t get his hands on everything. A perfectly understandable connection. Yet his time away from Boulder in 2026 seems to mirror when he was away last year. To be fair, Sanders has taken heat for some of his vacations. Not because a college football coach is not expected to take time off, but when he is often criticized.

Sanders has been on the island of St. Croix after Big 12 Media Days and opted not to return to Colorado. A video posted to Well Off Media includes Sanders shopping for a home on the Caribbean island. A year during his cancer recovery, Sanders admitted he needs to learn to enjoy life more. He has hit a crossroads between professional aspirations and personal late-stage relaxation. 

Sanders is coming off the worst season of his entire coaching and playing career. The urgency, rhetoric and the actual movements don’t seem to match. At least, not at the current moment. Sanders apologized to Colorado fans for an awful season last year. He included a promise that this year would be better and mentioned the new approach, new offensive system and such. What does that look like in the offseason? The frequent trips outside of Boulder are not a problem. But racking up frequent flyer miles does present more questions than answers.

The Buffaloes start to fall camp will take place in Colorado Springs. Not ideal for a team who will be on the road three of the first four weeks of the season, and not in neighboring states either. Sanders and Colorado will spend nearly 18 hours in the air in September. This doesn't include travel time back and forth on buses. 

Being able to take the team over a hundred miles away from campus is not unheard of. However, more can be gained from pumping artificial crowd noise into the speakers at Folsom Field in a round of simulated practices. Knowing your home environment will pay off for the 44 transfers on the roster. 

The timing of the Colorado Springs decision is curious to say the least. On April 2, the official UCCS website ran an article titled “Exploring a potential transition to CU Colorado Springs.” If starting camp in the Springs is about promoting a possible University rebrand to align with the best school of that university system is the motivation, why did the official decision not come out until July?

Lovo is a big fan of the idea. We'll see if it pays off. 

Colorado's first week of camp will take place from August 2-8. The team will practice at Fountain-Fort Carson High School (almost 50 miles from UCCS and almost 2 hours from Boulder). The team is expected to return to Boulder for Week 2 of practices. 

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