Shedeur Sanders at a 2024 spring game. Shedeur Sanders at a 2024 spring game. (Ron Chenoy-USA Today Sports.)
College FootballNFLTwitterBy Andrew Bucholtz on

NCAA conference realignment means we have many schools set to play football in new conferences this fall. In some cases, as with the Colorado Buffaloes’ move to the Big 12 (along with fellow Pac-12 exiles Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State), there’s some repetition of past history there, as the Buffaloes played there from 1996-2010. But there are still some remarkable takes popping up on what this move will mean, with many of those ignoring history.

One particularly notable one there came from Bradon Deacon of Twitter/X account @NFLRookieWatxh Monday. There, he said the conference had never seen a quarterback like Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders (who happens to be the son of controversial Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders, recently seen in his own social media fights). He compared Sanders’ performance in practice to current Kansas City Chiefs legend Patrick Mahomes.

The only problem there? Mahomes played in the Big 12 at Texas Tech. And that quickly got some Community Notes feedback for Deacon:

There are some potential defenses to that. Mahomes was not as prominent in college as he has become in the NFL, and he was only selected 10th overall in the 2017 NFL Draft. At the moment, there’s even some talk of Sanders potentially going first overall in the 2025 draft. But still, the suggestion that the Big 12 has not seen a quarterback of the “caliber” of Sanders is wild when you look at its history.

Mahomes is quite possibly the Big 12 quarterback who has found the most success in the professional ranks, with three Super Bowl titles, three Super Bowl MVP awards, and two NFL MVP awards to date (amidst a slew of other awards). But there have been many quarterbacks in the Big 12’s since-1994 history to be drafted high, including Vince Young (third overall in 2006), Baker Mayfield (first overall in 2018), and Kyler Murray (first overall in 2019). And yes, Texas and Oklahoma won’t be in the conference this fall, but they were at the time of those draft picks.

The other thing to keep in mind here is that for a long time, the Big 12 had a reputation as an “all gas, no brakes” (or all offense, no defense) conference. With Air Raid figures like Mike Leach at Texas Tech and others following in his footsteps (including former assistants Kliff Kingsbury, who coached Mahomes with the Red Raiders, and Lincoln Riley, who coached both Mayfield and Murray at Oklahoma), the Big 12 consistently saw scoring and passing records for a long while. So it’s absolutely absurd to suggest that Shedeur Sanders is a quarterback of a kind the conference has never seen. And that led to quite the responses; here are some of those.

Overall, this is just a dumb take. But the particular comparison to Mahomes, who literally played in the conference in question, is quite amusing. And it’s funny to see the reactions this has drawn.

[@NFLRookieWatxh on Twitter/X]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

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