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Coach Prime and Coach Malzahn go way back.
When the Colorado Buffaloes head to Orlando to take on the UCF Knights this Saturday, Coach Prime will get the opportunity to reconnect with an old friend. Deion Sanders and UCF head coach Gus Malzahn go way back and they finally get the opportunity to share a field.
“Coach Malzahn, I love him,” said Sander in his weekly Tuesday presser. “I appreciate him. He’s one of my favorite coaches in college football.”
Sanders and Malzahn’s history goes back to around six years ago when Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders was a high school recruit. Malzahn, who was the head coach at Auburn at the time, attempted to recruit Shedeur to play for the Tigers.
“The way [Malzahn] gave us love and showed us love and compassion when Shedeur was a sophomore or junior going up to visit at Auburn, and he offered him on the spot, was tremendous,” Sanders said. “I love what he’s brought to college football.”
In a twist of fate, Deion and Malzahn will coach against each other in a contest to decide the pecking order of the new Big 12 conference. Despite the high stakes and change of scenery, there’s been no loss of respect between the two head coaches.
“It’s an honor,” said Deion when asked what it means to him to share a field with Malzahn. “You’ve gotta understand, I was a high school coach visiting those guys and taking my kids to the college tours [to Auburn]. Now to have the opportunity to coach on the same field, it’s a tremendous honor.”
Malzahn has been a resource to Sanders on his coaching journey, but the mentorship will have to pause ahead of this week’s matchup. The two friends will take a momentary break as their teams duke it out for 3 hours on Saturday, but their relationship will resume right after the final whistle.
“After we play them, I can call [Malzahn] for advice,” Sanders said. “He’s not gonna give me advice before [the game], but he’s one of the guys who I would call for advice on certain situations that may occur with college football players.”
Ahead of the matchup with UCF, Prime and the Buffaloes could probably use all the advice they can get to try to stop the Knights’ prolific rushing attack. UCF currently leads the nation, averaging 375.7 rushing yards per game. Running back RJ Harvey and KJ Jefferson can torch teams on the ground if they aren’t careful. Luckily, it sounds as though Coach Prime has a simple plan to try to slow the Knights down.
“We gotta load the box up and pray to stop the run,” said Prime. “I feel good about our scheme.”
Stopping KJ Jefferson will be the key to Colorado’s success. The Buffs have struggled against running quarterbacks, allowing 163 yards and three rushing touchdowns from QBs alone against NDSU and Baylor. KJ Jefferson is probably the best running quarterback the Buffs will play all season and they know they need to contain him to win.
“We know it’s coming,” said Buffaloes DT Shane Cokes when asked about stopping the QB draw against UCF. “They know they want to do it. The point is to stop it, see it in practice, see how we run against it and just put a stop to it. We know the challenge is up, so we’ve just got to face it.”
The Buffs are currently 14.5 underdogs against the Knights ahead of Saturday’s matchup. At 1:30 pm MT on Fox, Colorado will face one of their biggest challenges of the entire season. If they prevail, the expectations for 2024 will skyrocket.
by RylandScholes
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