Deion Sanders returned to the city of Atlanta where he created plenty of special moments as a two-sport pro athlete. He was Primetime then, but he’s Coach Prime now and it was the Colorado football team that provided another magical night in the Peach State.

Julian Lewis engineered a 75-yard, game-winning TD drive with less than two minutes and Boo Carter blocked a FG attempt as time expired to give the Buffs a season-opening win over Georgia Tech. It was the kind of finish that Coach Prime and Colorado were on the wrong end of too many times last season.

“You have no idea how wonderful this is when you’ve been on the other side of these things,” Deion Sanders said postgame.

Colorado entered Week 1 as a 6.5-point underdog to the Yellow Jackets largely because of uncertainty surrounding its roster and coaching staff. Many of those questions were answered on Thursday night and Coach Prime proved that these aren’t the same Buffs as a year ago for many reasons.

Here are a few:

Deion Sanders’ love for coaching staff wasn’t just hype

Deion Sanders said on the record multiple times this offseason that this was the best coaching staff he’d ever assembled.

That was music to the ears of many Colorado football fans who watched the Buffs get out-coached and out-schemed far too many times last season. But the praise was just noise to plenty in the fanbase as well. Not after Week 1, though.

This time around, it was Georgia Tech HC Brent Key who said Colorado “out-coached” the Yellow Jackets and Chris Marve is a big reason why.

The Colorado DC had success against Key and Georgia Tech in 2024 when he was at Virginia Tech and that carried into 2026. Marve’s defense held the Yellow Jackets to just 51 rushing yards, their lowest total in a game since 2022 at Georgia.

More importantly, Colorado kept Georgia Tech’s offense out of the end zone all night (only TD allowed came on special teams). The Buffs rotated efficiently to keep guys fresh (19 different defenders played snaps) and showed multiple different looks and pressures to keep the Yellow Jackets guessing.

It was proof that Coach Prime got his DC hire right after losing Robert Livingston to the NFL.

Although Brennan Marion’s offense scored just 14 points, his Colorado debut as OC also showed promise. The game-winning drive was perfectly called by Marion, starting it off with a well-executed screen and keeping it alive on 3rd and 3 with a gutsy run call despite having zero timeouts.

Although QB Julian Lewis had a rough game through three quarters, Marion trusted his 18-year-old QB to make the biggest play of the game. It was an excellent play call, route and throw.

Marion’s Go-Go offense ran the ball 49 times for 183 yards, allowing the Buffs to control the time of possession (34:09 to 25:51), something they rarely did last season. He delivered on his promise of committing to and sticking to the run game.

The confidence Coach Prime has in his coordinators is through the roof.

“I don’t have to yell and scream,” Deion Sanders said postgame. “These guys are really good at they do. They’re very relational and they don’t panic. There was no panic on the headsets. There was no yelling or screaming.

“They rocked steady all the way through.”

Coach Prime has evolved

Deion Sanders said after the 2025 season finale that he sees everything being different in 2026, “even me.”

Coach Prime certainly took a different approach for his fourth season at Colorado, starting with those aforementioned coordinators. Both Marion and Marve have college football backgrounds while the Buffs’ previous coordinators came from the NFL. There’s still plenty of NFL experience on Colorado’s coaching staff, but there’s significantly more college influence than in year’s past and that showed up in Week 1.

Identity was something that Deion Sanders shied away from talking about in the past. He saw winning (or lack thereof) as a team’s identity, but he’s also evolved in that department.

Marve talked about “identity fortification” throughout fall camp and the violence he preached since winter workouts was evident vs. Georgia Tech.

Even on offense, Colorado looked like a team that knew exactly what it was: a smash-mouth, physical unit that’s going to run the ball until a defense proves they can stop it. That’s why on a night when the Buffs’ passing game was non-existent until the final drive, they were still in a position to win late.

Colorado was drawing dead in each of the previous seasons when it couldn’t throw the ball effectively. That’s not the case anymore.

“We damn near dominated the game and we weren’t even flowing offensively throwing the football,” Deion Sanders said postgame.

Colorado is must-see TV again

Thursday night vs. Georgia Tech felt familiar.

It was a late-night thriller with a chaotic finish. Deion Sanders and Colorado have now produced at least one of those in three of the last four seasons. After a disappointing 2025 season marred by Deion Sanders’ battle with cancer, the Buffs once again feel like must-see TV every week.

It was largely because of Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter in 2023-24. Now it’s because Colorado is a legitimately well-coached team with a talented, young QB and a violent defense.

With Weber State and Northwestern on the schedule next, there’s a real chance the Buffs enter Big 12 play 3-0 and ranked in the AP poll.

Follow Colorado Buffaloes beat reporter Scott Procter on X.