Shilo Sanders Says Colorado 'Got Rid of a Lot of Poison' From 2023 CFB Team

Colorado safety Shilo Sanders believes another offseason roster overhaul has yielded the kind of unity that's required for the Buffaloes to improve on a 4-8 record in 2023.

"As a team, you've got to be able to bond and can't have no hate toward each other," Shilo he said to ESPN's Adam Rittenberg. "You can't [have] poison. We got rid of a lot of poison last year. And this year, we're in a better space, clicking as a team and we expect to win."

Sanders cited players who were "talking crap about Colorado, coaches, that kind of stuff" when asked to clarify his comments.

This isn't the first time a member of the Sanders family in effect said Colorado benefited from addition by subtraction.

Buffaloes quarterback Shedeur Sanders said Xavier Smith, who transferred out to Austin Peay ahead of the 2023 season, "had to be very mid at best" after Smith was candid with his thoughts about head coach Deion Sanders in an interview with The Athletic's Max Olson.

To Shedeur's point, it's not as though a lot of the players who left during the mass exodus in 2023 went on to thrive elsewhere.

However, his dismissive attitude toward Smith broadly belies how even the best teams don't have 5-star blue-chippers destined for the NFL at every single spot on the roster. Colorado's lack of depth became an increasingly glaring problem as last year unfolded, and some of the players Deion Sanders unceremoniously showed the door might have been positive contributors as backups.

Focusing so heavily on the transfer portal at the expense of traditional recruiting can make it tough to establish a baseline culture within a program as well because the roster shifts so dramatically from season to season. The coaches don't have the same kind of read on a player's attitude and demeanor that they might've gained by recruiting him across multiple years as a high schooler, either.

"They're a bunch of guys who didn't get a chance here or got a chance and messed it up," Deion Sanders told Andscape's Jean-Jacques Taylor last September of his roster following a 3-0 start. "We got a bunch of misfits over here. We have a bunch of guys who have something to prove. Everybody has something to prove. All these kids have a story."

Contrast that assessment — one made when Colorado was at its 2023 zenith — with what Shilo said Wednesday during the Big 12's media day.

Adversity is always the test of a team's cohesion and chemistry. When things were going well for the Buffs, everybody was rowing in the same direction. Once things started to spiral, they spiraled in a big way.

For now, all is well in Boulder. Let's see where things stand after Colorado begins to navigate what could be a tricky conference slate after its return to the Big 12.