Truth about Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders' new offensive line affecting his NFL Draft stock

Intro I want to talk about shador Sanders I want to talk about Colorado and its offensive line I want to take an honest and authentic view of what really is standing in the way of Colorado's offense being great we could talk about the defense and their trials and tribulations on another day but given the attention that is being paid to shador Sanders going into this year in which is a contract year for him right he's draft eligible and there are many that believe he's a first round draft pick myself included second half of the draft right now but could easily fall out of this or move up depending on frankly what happens with this offensive line because we've got enough footage on him from Jackson State to know that shador Sanders can sling it we also have enough footage from him last year knowing he can sling it it's about can you do that at the next level and what more can you show in the Big 12 this Is the Big 12 tougher than the Pac 12 year I'm going to start with the Pack 12 was tough last year it was not uh as tough excuse me it was not as tough as SEC or the Big 10 but it was certainly tougher than the Big 12 okay from Washington to Oregon that alone made it a tougher place to play and then SC being bad is still SC being not bad right seven and5 UCLA right there they ended up having a pretty damn good season Washington State fell off in a real way Oregon State turned out to be tough we keep dra down the line on this one but I just wanted to say if you believe that Colorado is going to a weaker League I think think you're wrong I think through the middle it's as tough as the Pack 12 was last year and I think at the top it's going to be tough for anybody to win even as Utah Oklahoma State Kansas Kansas State might have a better opportunity to win it than Colorado simply because they're a more balanced football team given what we know about them so the open question as to whether or not you would want to start Avery Johnson at quarterback or shador Sanders given what kind of offensive line he had to work with at Colorado and the kind of offensive line Avery Johnson has to work with at Kansas Shedeur Sanders ceiling State so let's start with the ceiling for shador Sanders is the Heisman Memorial trophy period he can win it he can be the best player in all of college football and that's not a nothing statement right there are a whole bunch of people playing college football right now that ain't got a chance in hell of winning the Heisman Trophy I don't give a damn where they play or what position they play there's only about two dozen guys that we are really looking at that we think have the talent let alone the team around them to win the Heisman Trophy and he is one of them but the reason that we are taking a hard View at least in this segment on the show of uh about shador Sanders is he and Jackson State were so much better than anybody else that they played uh throughout the swack and throughout uh the FCS that it was just difficult to get a good read on just how good that team was and then you couple that with they showed out for the first three four games of the season and he threw for a billion yards or so it felt but the offense was also built around throwing the football and particularly throwing the football short to try to facilitate hey read and react get the ball out as quickly as you can move the ball out down uh down the field before the defense gets an opportunity to set and get after you that's what sha Lewis was trying to do I think that worked through the first half but you could see the wear and tear all around the team that just didn't allow that to be sustainable he eventually got relieved of his play calling duties and Pat Shermer is the new offensive coordinator we'll talk about how that probably influences the 2024 program here a little bit later but Colorado New offensive line brought in 11 new offensive linemen to help them not be the worst Power four conference offensive line in the League this year they gave up 56 sacks they got the starting quarterbacks back broken got a new offensive line coach and Phil lool who is near and dear to my heart because he was outstanding at Oklahoma as a left tackle even at one point was thinking about going to play for Gary Barnett at Colorado before Prime gave him the opportunity to be the offensive line at what I think is the most important and most difficult position coach yeah position coaching spot in in the sport right now you have to try to make the worst Power for offensive line into one of the best ones because you got one of the better quarterbacks behind them and you need them to protect that man if you want an opportunity to win and they just couldn't do that last year it is astounding to say 56 sa it is yet more astounding to know that shador was pressured 197 times last year that Pressure means that he was pressured 37% of the time he dropped back only two QBs in FBS were pressured more one of them was Purdue quarterback Hudson card who was pressured 39.4% of the time and the other one was actually Ashton Daniels at Stanford who despite being pressured 45.4% of the time was not pressured enough that he could find El I Manor for 294 yards on 13 three TDS to beat Colorado in what was a thrilling overtime win for Stanford last year the other thing to take into account about this offensive line is that there were terrible run blocking okay so what does that have to do with being able to throw the ball well if we don't expect you to run the ball we get to send people after you as if you will not do it and that's the drawback to running Shawn Lewis's offense when you are only rushing for 827 yards which is nothing you're saying we're going to run the ball to give the quarterback a bit of a break here or try to but if that's not what you teach during practice run blocking a they're not going to be good at it and B you are not making the defense think about what it is you might do next they know you're going to drop back they know you're going to try to get the ball out quickly and we're going to call defenses that we think can stop that and we're certainly going to try to get into your quarterback's face and they were succeeding in doing that and the reason that is important for a player like shador Sanders who normally is very good at getting the ball out of the pocket last year he held the ball at times when when you like to see him throw the ball but that's cuz the man running for his life it changes your attitude back there you're not just going to keep standing back there and getting marked buered as if you were running Mike marz's offense so that you can complete passes that's how you get concussed now Mike March is running offenses that didn't much care about whether or not the quarterback got blasted as long as he got the ball out they were able to be the greatest show on Turf if you're shadur Sanders or any other quarterback you not necessarily built that way you're not built to stand there and just let people whay on you so you're going try to run away and make some off platform throws and everybody thinks of Patrick Mahomes when we do this but Patrick Mahomes does a lot from the pocket too you know not for nothing but they put a lot of money into protecting that man so why wouldn't you put a lot of money into protecting Shor Sanders also means that every third pass that shidu Sanders threw there was somebody in his face it is really difficult to throw the football when you know that every third time you drop back somebody is going to probably put their hands on you and trying to hurt you that's just the nature of the game and that's human nature the more somebody gets hit the less they want to get hit and the more you adapt to trying to survive getting hit as opposed to standing in the pocket and completing passes which is you know great if you want to go to the Coliseum and win a gladiatorial bout but it ain't particularly conducive to playing winning football over the course of 12 games now on top of that we have to take into account there was a three-week stretch where it just felt like all shador Sanders was doing was getting hit hit during the middle of the season over NFL Experience three weeks he got pressured 68 times for perspective Oregon quarterback Bo Knicks who threw for a billion yards and a billion TDS it's more like 4,040 he got pressured all of 79 times for the entire season okay they were very good at protecting that man and that's why he ended up a guy we were talking about as a Heisman Trophy caliber quarterback now adding load hold to your offensive line adding Jason Phillips to coach your wide receivers both guys got NFL experience Robert Livingston defensive coordinator got NFL experience everybody got NFL experience that's what everybody want to keep telling me about is we're trying to get people to League we're trying to get people that respect the NFL well not necessarily dog like I want to win a National Championship I'm I'm glad that everyone of the kids want to get to the NFL and I want them to get to the NFL but on the way there I would like to win championships so I would like you to hire coaches that know how to win championships if they won championships in the NFL cool bet bring it I'm good with that but if they ain't won no championships don't tell me about no NFL experience okay you know I I know at least one Personnel director that has zero NFL experience that I will put up against any other NFL Personnel director period his name is Zack Potter he's created a dynasty called the Birmingham stallions maybe you've heard of him that dude has graduated from Nebraska in December he ain't got no NFL experience but he knows how to build winners he's won championships I don't give a damn about nobody having no NFL on their resume if you ain't won no championships okay now what I think that Phil Lo hold should get a lot of credit for is filling the new offensive line with zero additions from junior college ranks because you ain't got to do that anymore and going to get Five Guys that aren't freshman right and have come from FBS programs I also think that you're going to look at the tight ends and while you were used to seeing a pass catcher there you're going to see guys that are better in blocking in pass protection sa SEL Smalls is going to move over at 6'3 260 from playing Edge playing tight end Sam Hart 6'5 255 a blocking tight end from Ohio State along with d Hayden in the backfield I think run plays are going to be a much bigger part of what Pat Shermer does like they're actually going to try to run the football effectively and make the defense respect your ability to move the ball four or five yards on the ground perhaps so you could do play action pass which is another place where shidu was just bad because they didn't run a lot of play action pass that worked I think he completed something like 21 play action attempts which is ridiculous because if you are a quarterback play action passes your best friend because that means that people are thinking about running the football and the safeties are coming down to fit so you get one-on-one on the outside that just means you got to be accurate and that is where sh Sanders is an NFL firstr draft pick he is super damn accurate so if you give him time he's going to put the ball in only the place where his wide receiver can catch it and he's got this particularly great chemistry with Travis Hunter out there on the outside and I think you know you're going to see other guys coming to the uh come into the spot there that are going to probably be better wide re in Travis Hunter not shade it's just their elevating over there and Travis Hunter goes both ways I think getting away from Offensive Line the reactionary part of this and trying to dictate to the defense what you're going to do based on what you see is also going to help shador Sanders not just offensively but mature into the kind of a player that NFL Scouts know what to evaluate with because that's going to look similar to the kind of thing that you're going to see on Sundays as opposed to on Saturdays now let's talk about these FBS offensive linemen that they brought in because I don't think that many people have given a lot of time and air to talking about the offensive line with any sort of honesty and detail across shows because offensive linemen just don't move the needle you don't put offensive linemen in a headline for uh a show if you want people to watch it they don't care as a matter of fact my first question for any guy diard college football fan who claims to love a team is who are the starting five on your offensive line because if you can't name them I don't need to trust you okay in some form I Roster Turnover believe that these are the guys that will be playing offensive line at Colorado okay we got Savon Washington who was a right tackle last year one of the two two yeah two dudes that are returning from last year's 2023 Squad who had something to prove so when Travis Hunter was playing next to shador uh the eeve before they dropped the Early Access of EA Sports college football 25 talking about the uh Colorado offensive line last year's trash they came block for nothing this this dude was on that offensive line and I am curious about how he feels about all of this and what his play will look like because he's probably going to be back in that right tackle spot across from five-star true freshman Jordan Sean on that left tackle spot who's supposed to help Elevate them now in the middle we're gonna have a fight okay got Tyler Johnson transferring in from Houston you got Justin Mayers transferring in from UTEP you got yiri Walker transferring in from Yukon you got khil Benson transferring in from Indiana and you got Phil Houston transferring in from fi you none of those programs were particularly great last year so that's number one number two is Yukon went three and nine Indiana went three and N UTP went three and nine FIU and 4 and8 so you're getting starters from football teams that were as bad as you were last year and people want to know why I'm not enthusiastic about the roster turnover for the second straight year at Colorado and I had said you replaced the like for like you you've replaced the same kind of player that you had last year I think they developed into a 4 and8 Colorado team I don't think that they regressed into a 4 and8 Colorado team with other guys that went 4 and8 in conferences that we don't respect UTEP does not play in a conference we respect FIU does not play in a conference we respect Indiana bad in a conference that we respect Houston bad in a conference that we respect and of course Yukon didn't play in no conference because Yukon doesn't really care about football they only care about winning basketball championships more power to them but that's not a football school not anymore once was not anymore so back to shador among FBS quarterbacks with at least 300 pass attempts we're talking about a guy who was really accurate down the field third in completion percentage when we're talking about balls that travel 30 yards or more he completed 14 to 32 uh for you know the balls that went that far that's pretty damn good right you want be 5050 on your 50-50 balls and 50-50 balls are things you throw downfield going hey you versus him can you go win can you go High Point the ball and I think you're going to get better at wide receiver not to say Xavier Weaver was bad or Jimmy horn was bad because I think they were pretty damn good themselves but Travis a TR transfer uh will Shepard I think 6'3 205 he caught 150 balls across two years at Vanderbilt he's the other guy at Vanderbilt the transferred out people don't talk about everybody talks about London Humphrey going to Georgia because he went to Georgia I think lante Wester has an opportunity to be all Big 12 at the uh as an allpurpose player like he might actually be able to challeng Travis Hunter for the best allpurpose player on that team which means best allpurpose player in the country because lante at 511 167 caught 108 passes at Florida Atlantic last year and was one of the better punt returners in the entire country I think between Travis will and lante you're going to have guys that are going to get themselves open quickly against press coverage against manover coverage and allow for a guy like tra shador Sanders to go out there and operate but the thing that I will be watching for most and the thing that you cannot accelerate about offensive line is how quickly they Jael and how quickly they can pick up the scheme together it is the toughest group to coach because there is no easy fix to a bad offensive line you have to have developed them off the field well meaning in the weight room you have to have them within weight and and you have to have them conditioned and then you have to have them play a bunch together because it is a it is a tool on a football team that you can't separate like I can separate a wide receiver I can separate running backs I can separate every other position even defensive tackles defensive defensive ends a center has to work with guards guards have to work with tackles you have to like you can try to put different guards in because it's an athletic position it's not one that's really built around technique it's built around being brutally strong but even that is difficult and your Center has to be so smart about what the quarterback knows and why the quarterback knows it it's why you hear people talking so well about Jason Kelce and what he was allowing for Jaylen Herz to become for the Philadelphia Eagles it's why at Oklahoma you'd hear people talk about Creed Humphrey being one of the most talented centers that they'd ever seen and that's dude that even had trouble snapping the ball from time to time ghost can city turns into Super Bowl champ I want to know that they have that at Colorado before I we start talking about Colorado winning anything I'm not at all certain that they are going to have that in the offensive line I I do I think they're going to be better I hope so I hope you don't give up 56 sacks in 2024 and I hope that shador Sanders gets an opportunity to show the NFL what they want to see which is in something akin to an NFL offense which Pat shmer will won which sea Lewis did not can you get that back oh I always almost was remiss on this one Tyler Brown is eligible this year and he was All-American uh at Jackson State he had to sit out last year because of the NCAA transfer rule says you can't transfer twice and play immediately so he set out a year so you'll get him back right and I think that's also going to elevate your offensive line it's just I always think of Tyler Brown as having been there because I've been talking at some point about Jackson State for the better part of four years now so that's where I'm at with this if you think that Colorado is going to win more than six games let me know in the comments below