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Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
Sanders is a top candidate, but it depends on more than his own performance.
The lack of excitement around CU football this season is quite the testament to the power of a six-game losing streak. Even after a 3-0 start, they were obviously never the 19th best team in the country – and Oregon wasted no time reminding people of that. Then players got hurt, coordinators got fired, and The Rock stopped showing up. Their get-right game against Stanford on parents weekend went horribly wrong, and before anyone knew it, Ryan Staub was starting against Utah. There’s a joke about Aflac insurance buried in there somewhere.
The offseason didn’t go a whole lot better, and now the Buffs re-enter the Big 12 with almost no expectations, which is slightly surprising considering they’re one of the few teams in America with two of the 15-20 most likely Heisman candidates. But after we all learned a thing or two about expectations last season, how seriously should we be taking Sanders and Hunters’ chances? What a great, topical question! Since the Heisman is more or less a quarterback’s award, I’ll be brave and go out on a limb to say that Sanders has the stronger case, despite the fact that Hunter is (in my opinion, at least) the more special player.
And, reader, the numbers are there. It’s entirely possible – likely, even – that Carson Beck or Dillion Gabriel runs away with it after having huge years on winning teams in tougher conferences, but a healthy Sanders is going to be in the discussion. Here are the stat lines of the last three Heisman winners, all QBs, in the season they won:
Jayden Daniels, LSU, 2023: 71% completion rate, 3811 passing yards, 40 touchdowns, four interceptions, 94.7 overall PFF grade
Caleb Williams, USC, 2022: 66% completion rate, 3717 passing yards, 34 touchdows, three interceptions, 91.2 overall PFF grade
Bryce Young, Alabama, 2021: 68% completion rate, 3898 passing yards, 40 touchdowns, four interceptions, 92.3 overall PFF grade
Four data points obviously don’t tell the entire story, but they’re a decent starting point as far as the overall picture’s concerned. There are a billion places on the internet where you can get way more into the weeds on this, but broadly speaking, Heisman-winning QBs complete around 70% of their passes, don’t turn the ball over, and find the end zone a ton. The good news is that Sanders’ first season in Boulder wasn’t that far off:
Sheduer Sanders, CU, 2023: 68% completion rate, 3229 passing yards, 27 touchdowns, three interceptions, 88.4 overall PFF grade
Sanders wasn’t quite as prolific as those guys, but the comparable completion percentage and low turnover rate is encouraging. Context helps his case, too: Sanders put up those numbers in his first year at the FBS level, behind one of the worst (maybe the worst) offensive lines in college football, and without Travis Hunter for a month. Concerns about how he’d handle FBS competition were always overblown, but at the very least, he ended that conversation nice and early.
It sounds overly simplistic – and it probably is – but so much of Sanders’ success in 2024 will come down to how the offensive line plays. We all saw what happens when a QB gets sacked 50 times a season. As every football coach who’s ever existed will tell you, the best ability is availability; not playing football games will, unfortunately, affect his Heisman campaign. It’s dumb, I know.
Still, the fact that 25% of the pressures that Sanders saw last year turned into actual sacks – significantly more than any of those other three guys and 10th most in FBS – speaks to a habit that coaches, analysts, and even Sanders himself admitted was a problem last year: not getting rid of the ball. Sanders’ average time to throw (TTT) last season was 2.89 seconds, and while that was less than two of the three examples above during their respective Heisman seasons (Daniels 2.91, Williams 3.30, Young 2.86), it was longer than either of his seasons at Jackson State. And out of 87 NCAA QBs who took at least 50% of their team’s snaps in 2023, Sanders’ TTT ranked 23rd.
It’s not all on Sanders – there’s a reason why he ended up with negative rushing totals in seven of the Buffs’ 11 games – but if he can consistently get the ball out on time and keep the offense in a better rhythm, playing in a dozen 54-51 Big 12 games doesn’t feel quite as daunting. He’ll still get his Hero Ball moments, but (ideally) they’ll be more fun when it doesn’t feel like he’s legitimately running for his life.
I’m also intrigued by how much more the Buffs will incorporate play action into their offense. It’s a huge part of Pat Shurmur’s ideology, and Sanders had a mixed bag of results with it last season: his box score stats (67% completion, 6.1 yards per attempt, eight touchdowns, no interceptions) were decent, but it wasn’t a particularly explosive part of the offense. In 140 PA dropbacks, Sanders had the same amount of turnover worthy throws (3) as “big time throws” and was sacked nine times. His average depth of target on those plays was about 6.5 yards, which was the 4th lowest ADOT of any NCAA QB. That’s especially disheartening when you look at Sanders’ success throwing deep last season. If the Buffs’ o-line/running game is as improved as their coaches would like you to believe, there’s a ton of potential for big plays there. And if NCAA ‘25 is any indication, the play-action Travis Hunter go ball will be automatic.
The good news is that Sanders is, simply put, a legitimate Heisman candidate. That’s exciting! Even outside of the work that his “brand” does for him (I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m trying to delete), his on-field production screams Heisman contender. At the very least, he’ll be in the Davey O’Brien conversation. The bad news is that as the Buffs go, Sanders goes. If the line plays as poorly as they did last year, injuries and business decisions are going to get in the way. But that’s a December problem. For now I’m just going to assume that everything in this blog will go exactly to plan, like it typically does in Boulder.
by camellis
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