Colorado

The program's only national championship was in 1990 under Bill McCartney — three Big Eight titles, Rashaan Salaam's 1994 Heisman, a Colorado identity built on the ground game and the altitude at Folsom Field. Then two decades of drift. Then Coach Prime arrived in 2023 and turned Boulder into the most-watched address in college football without winning a conference title or coming close to a Playoff. The 2023 season was the national arrival story. The 2024 season, with Hunter and Shedeur Sanders leading a 9-4 team, was the proof-of-concept season. And 2025 — 3-9, a 53-7 wipeout at Utah, blowouts to both Arizona schools — was the season the show ran into the reality of what a Power program looks like when its two best players leave and the depth behind them hasn't been built.

Deion Sanders signed a five-year, $54 million extension in March 2025 and declared his health restored after a blood-clot scare following prior surgery. He is loudly not on the hot seat in Boulder, by the school's own accounting. The offseason story in 2026 is a trench rebuild — Sanders spending portal resources and attention on offensive and defensive linemen, the structural pieces that 2024's stars masked. The bet is that Prime's recruiting gravity is real enough to pull in the depth a 9-4 team needs to become an 11-2 team.

The 2026 question is the one Boulder has been avoiding since 2023: is the spotlight the program, or does the program have to earn the spotlight? Four years in, 16-21 overall, the answer can't stay philosophical. The Big 12 schedule doesn't curve for narrative. Ralphie still runs out before kickoff, the altitude is still real, and Deion Sanders is still the most magnetic figure in the sport. Whether that's enough is what 2026 will actually answer.