TEMPE, AZ — Coming into the season, the Colorado Buffaloes were predicted to win three and a half games. They quickly put the nation on notice after starting 3-0, taking down TCU, followed by two rivalry wins against Nebraska and Colorado State, leaving anyone who bet the under, shaking in their boots.

After dropping the next two games against top ten opponents Oregon and USC, the Buffs’ record coming into their matchup against the Arizona State Sun Devils was 3-2.

As Colorado’s sixth game of the year concludes, it officially marks the halfway point of head coach Deion Sanders’ debut season on the Buffs sideline. What seemed unimaginable a year ago could come to fruition in Coach Prime’s first season.

A bowl game. 

Six regular season wins gets teams a bid to postseason football. With a 3-0 start to the season, the Buffs were already halfway there heading into Pac-12 conference play. Looking at the remaining schedule for the Buffs after their first five games, three games stood out as “must wins,” necessary to solidify a spot in a bowl game- Arizona State, Stanford and Arizona.

Similar to most of the Buffaloes’ games this season, they came out with a very slow start against ASU. The teams traded touchdowns early in the first quarter, and as the game went on, the Sun Devils entered halftime with the lead. The Buffs later took the lead early in the fourth quarter and were able to hold on, notching their fourth win of the season by a score of 27-24.

“Wonderful win, played like hot garbage,” Coach Prime said to start his post game press conference. “I’m happy about the win, but I’m not happy in the fashion that we won it in. We’re better than that, we really are better than that and we got to start showing that.”

The next chance for the Buffaloes to show that they are a better team is when the Stanford Cardinal visit Boulder on Friday night, Oct. 13. The Cardinal are 1-4 on the season, including losses to Sacramento State and Arizona. Although, a one-win team’s record may not matter as much, as the Buffs struggled against the one-win Sun Devils squad.

Arizona will also make their way to Boulder later in the season in the final home game of the season for the Buffaloes. The Wildcats matched the Buffs’ 3-2 record heading into week six, taking home wins against Northern Arizona, an FCS school, and UTEP, a Group of Five team, also defeating one-win Stanford on Sep. 23 by a score of 21-20.

As for the rest of the Buffs’ Pac-12 conference schedule, it seems to be a bloodbath. The Pac-12, in their final season, is going out with a bang. At one point this season, eight of the 12 teams were ranked in the top 25 making it so there isn’t a true easy match-up for any team in the conference.

There aren’t any glaring matchups that are leaning in favor of the Buffs, but a surprise upset of one of the four remaining teams–UCLA, Oregon State, Washington State, and Utah–would make a path to the postseason a lot more clear.

The last time the Colorado Buffaloes qualified for a bowl game was the 2020 season, led by head coach Karl Dorrell, where the Buffs fell to the Texas Longhorns in the Alamo Bowl, losing 55-23.

There is still a lot of season left, but a bowl game in Deion Sanders first season would truly show how the “Prime Effect” is already in full effect and putting football in Boulder back on the map.