After a lacklustre season, freshman Julian Lewis got the starting gig. But it was too late to salvage the 2025 season, which had already sustained five losses. He went 0-3, and it was clear that the 2025 season had failed to deliver. With an unsuccessful QB room, Deion Sanders took to the mic, admitting his recruiting blunders.

It’s been a challenging year for the Buffs. Although Coach had been reeling with his own health struggles, Boulder never took a pause. Aside from practice reps, the recruiting momentum never dipped. But it didn’t reach its full potential. They had been plagued by a QB conundrum all season. For the first three games, Deion Sanders rotated all three quarterbacks. Transfer Kaidon Salter failed to get the offense going. Then freshman JuJu Lewis became QB1. But it wasn’t a success. On Tuesday, discussing his lackluster season, Deion Sanders touched upon his offseason recruiting blunders.

“You want about 15-17 high school kids. Check the statistics. You get 30, are they gonna be here in a few years?” he said in a press conference. “This year, you hit on your freshman, to me, you missed on the portal. We didn’t miss, I missed.”

It’s no surprise that Prime Time has a 40-40-20 recruiting formula. 40% grad transfers, 40% undergrad transfers, and 20% high school kids. Sanders has relied heavily on the transfer portal to fill the Buffs’ talent gaps. Currently, the roster has 17 transfers, but did their skill set transfer in the way the Buffs required?

When Liberty transfer Kaidon Salter arrived at Boulder, expectations were high. With 56 touchdowns on his resume, he was expected to have an explosive season at Colorado Buffs. But it was far from that. Earlier, the head coach had admitted missing key players from the portal, but insisted on investing more in transfer players.

“We missed on several players,” he said of the portal, but added, “I would be a fool to go out there and get 30 freshmen when statistics show me that within two years, half those kids are probably gone,” Sanders said. “You want to identify maybe 15-20 [freshmen] at the most. Not only that, there’s money in this thing, and kids are getting paid.”

However, with all the transfers, the 2025 season failed to take off. In a conversation with The Athletic, an anonymous Big 12 manager shared that Sanders’ transfers looked better on paper, but that talent didn’t bleed into execution.

“If you take a look at a lot of the guys that they brought in, there wasn’t a ton of production. They took a bunch of Power 4 big names, big (recruiting) star guys, and they put them in with the expectation that they were going to have big jumps. And they just didn’t.”

Colorado’s 2025 season began with optimism: “We want to win.’ But over the weeks, Colorado’s trajectory became too obvious.

And now, freshman JuJu Lewis, who was the starting QB for the past three games, has announced his redshirt.

Deion Sanders on Julian Lewis’ redshirt

Freshman Julian Lewis, a No. 7-ranked QB in the Class of 2025, arrived at Boulder at the earliest to get an early kickoff in his collegiate career. He threw his first snaps against Delaware State. 2-of-4 pass attempts for eight yards. It was a start, which would eventually land him the starting gig. However, it wasn’t a rosy picture. The Buffs had lost more games than they had won. Kaidon Salter and Ryan Staub struggled to make plays.

Eventually, JuJu became the starting QB. But three back-to-back losses, and the freshman, who was still developing, couldn’t get the offense moving. It didn’t take long before the media asked about his redshirt plans. On Tuesday, Sanders revealed that JuJu will be redshirting for the rest of the season. He won’t appear against Kansas State this weekend. With that, the QB1 duties will return to veteran Kaidon Salter.

“I’ve made a decision that JuJu is gonna redshirt,” Sanders said. “That’s my decision. I want what’s best for the kid, what’s best for his family, what’s best for this wonderful university. I’m not going to say [Lewis] was happy, because he’s a competitor. He wants to compete; he wants to play.”

It was obvious the Buffs’ 2025 season had ended before it took off. With JuJu’s redshirt, he will gain another year to improve his resume.