Deion Sanders insists Julian Lewis wasn’t demoted to No. 3 on the depth chart. As for what actually happened, he’d prefer Lewis be the one to explain it.
Following Colorado’s 29-7 loss to No. 12 Texas Tech on Saturday, Sanders faced questions about how Lewis had seemingly plummeted to third string in the span of a week. The 19-year-old former five-star recruit opened the season as the Buffaloes’ starter and torched Weber State for 366 yards and four touchdowns just three weeks ago, yet he never left the sideline against the Red Raiders as Isaac Wilson made his first start of the year.
But when a reporter characterized the move as a demotion, Sanders rejected that version of events and suggested Lewis was the one who owed the media an explanation.
“No, no. I would love JuJu to come in here and he tell you what happened. Don’t ‘you benched JuJu from first string to third string.’ No, that’s not how it went down,” Sanders exclaimed. “It didn’t happen like that.”
“No, No, I Would love JuJu to come in here and he tell you what happened. Don’t ‘you benched JuJu from first string to third string. No that’s not how it went down…It didn’t happen like that.”
-Deion Sanders on Julian Lewis appearing to be demoted to QB3 https://t.co/kuicSqVuDc
— LockedOnBuffs (@LockedOnBuffs) October 4, 2026
Sanders declined to elaborate, which only deepened the intrigue. He insisted he wasn’t going to single out a teenager in front of reporters, suggesting the line of questioning was unfair to Lewis rather than offering any clarity on how he went from QB1 to the bottom of the depth chart in the span of a week.
“JuJu didn’t play today,” Sanders continued, “but I’m not going to badger the kid or say anything derogatory about the kid. He didn’t play today. I’m more worried about our team.”
Finding a quarterback has been Sanders’ most persistent headache since his son, Shedeur, left for the NFL after the 2024 season, and the revolving door at the position has coincided with Colorado’s slide from a nine-win team to one fighting to stay afloat in the Big 12. Colorado played three quarterbacks during last year’s 3-9 campaign, and the Buffaloes have now dropped three straight, including a 41-7 rout at Northwestern, to fall to 2-3.
It’s a far cry from the opening months of 2023, when Sanders’ arrival in Boulder made Colorado the hottest ticket in college football, drawing record audiences on Fox and ESPN and luring both Big Noon Kickoff and College GameDay to town on the same weekend.
Sanders has also spent much of the last two years at odds with the reporters who cover him. He has accused reporters of being jealous and of attacking his players, banned a columnist from his press availabilities, and at times declined to make players available to the media altogether. This season, he closed practice to reporters, so nobody outside the program has been able to watch the quarterback competition play out, and Sanders’ postgame comments are the main source of information on Lewis’ status.
Colorado returns to action next week, still searching for answers at quarterback, and for now, the only person Sanders says can explain Lewis’ status is Lewis himself.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.