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Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

Colorado Football and Deion Sanders' surprising amount of returning production may not be good enough

Originally posted on A to Z Sports | By Travis May | Last updated 5/14/24

Every single year--now more than ever--college football programs have to reload their rosters with new faces in new places. Players from every team around the country move on to the NFL Draft, transfer, or unfortunately even sometimes give up on football entirely. Yes, each college football team ends up looking quite different than the previous season's roster did just a few short months prior.

So, how important is it really to rank highly in returning production when it comes to having immense success in today's college football? It used to be that the blue blood programs like Alabama, Georgia, or Ohio State would just replace the vast majority of their production year over year and be right back in the mix to compete for a championship. But lately things look like that trend may be changing, at least for most top programs.

Colorado and Deion Sanders--on the other hand--seem to think they can turn over the entire roster every year without ever really recruiting the high school football ranks and have success. In Deion's two offseason attempts with the Buffaloes he's actually sent more than an entire roster's worth of players packing, replacing them with transfer talent. However, despite that fact, Colorado surprisingly returns a decent amount of last year's production. But is it good production? And can their new and returning players work together to win this season?

Colorado Football Returning Production

Every year, ESPN's Bill Connelly (one of the best in the business) puts together his SP+ returning production rankings. If you're unfamiliar with SP+, simply put it is a composite analytics system that measures team production, success, and efficiency in a variety of ways. It's one of the best and most proven measures of team composition (and future success) out there.

And as you can see in Bill Connelly's post below, Colorado surprisingly ranks 17th in returning production among all FBS schools. How is that possible given all their departures? The short answer is that anyone who doesn't play a significant role seems to be getting the boot after just one year. Those who do quite often stick around.

UPDATED 2024 RETURNING PRODUCTION RANKINGS. Still some portal commits trickling in, but where do things stand in mid-May?

(NEXT WEEK: an SP+ update and ... THE START OF THE 2024 PREVIEW SERIES!!) pic.twitter.com/7GhPRYwCjG
— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) May 13, 2024

It's somewhat promising that the players who do see the field for Deion Sanders quite often stay (with a few notable exceptions). However, is the depth and production that's returning actually good enough to win? Let's dive into the most important returning and new players for Colorado that could be the difference in 4-8 and 8-4 this season.

Most Important Returning Players

The most important trio of returning players for Colorado are clearly Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter, and Shilo Sanders.

Shedeur made some incredible throws early last season, but when it was all said and done struggled immensely with bringing far too many pressures on himself, finishing ranked well outside the Top 20 in most meaningful rate stats.

Hunter will continue playing both sides of the ball, perhaps being the most impactful star on both sides of the ball. Hopefully he can stay healthy for the whole season this time around. If he does Colorado is potentially a much better team in 2024. As a future first round pick Hunter is certainly the most talented on the whole squad.

Shilo Sanders, while not as important as Hunter, is most likely the team's second best defender. A few other returning defenders are at least serviceable, but Shilo actually defended a handful of passes and only surrendered nine yards per reception.

Most Important New Players

Colorado learned quickly that they had a real wide receiver depth issue last season any time Hunter or Xavier Weaver were out, so they added a few wide receivers. The most important addition is likely Will Sheppard, a four-year veteran from Vanderbilt. Sheppard got used to hogging the majority of defensive attention every single week in the SEC and should be even better than Weaver was for Colorado last fall.

Five star freshman offensive tackle Jordan Seaton will likely have to immediately play every snap. He and most of the offensive line group is completely new, so his contribution and cohesion with all the new faces will define the trajectory of the entire season.

And last, but not least, the new pass rush specialist duo of Samuel Okunlola (Pittsburgh) and Keaten Wade (Kentucky) will both need to hit in order for Colorado to get after opposing quarterbacks. Okunlola has gotten more attention this offseason given he tallied five sacks last year, but Wade actually posted better pass rush rate stats last season for Kentucky and seems to have even better potential NFL traits.

The Colorado experiment may end up failing, but all of the moving parts at least make for an exciting mix of new faces and some decent returning talent.

And if you want to watch some Travis Hunter highlights to see how special of a talent he is for Colorado you can check out the video below!