BOULDER — Colorado lost a playmaker.
Senior wide receiver K.D. Nixon entered the transfer portal Wednesday, making it likely that Nixon will finish his college career at another school next fall. Nixon finished his CU career with 104 catches for 1250 yards and 7 touchdowns.
2020 was a “prove-it” year for Nixon. He’d declared for the draft in the previous offseason but ultimately decided to stay in school, probably because NFL teams wanted to see more production at the college level.
Nixon only played in four games though, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and a hamstring kept him out of the early part of the year, including most of camp.
Luckily for Nixon, the NCAA is granting an extra year of eligibility to all football student-athletes, so Nixon gets another shot at his “prove-it” year, but that likely won’t come at Colorado.
Where does that leave Colorado?
Nixon hasn’t released a statement explaining his decision to transfer, but one doesn’t need to look far to come up with a pretty good guess.
Despite losing Nixon, Colorado is still incredibly deep at wide receiver. Brenden Rice, La’Vontae Shenault and Dimitri Stanley are young studs who should be ready to take over. Jaylon Jackson and Maurice Bell will be juniors again and either one could break out, with Bell having proven more to this point. Keith Miller III, Chris Carpenter and Montana Lemonious-Craig will be true freshmen again in 2020. Daniel Arias could even be ready for a leap next year.
With so much firepower in the arsenal, the Buffs won’t struggle to find a handful of guys worthy of playing time. In fact, they’re much more likely to have the opposite problem.
Even with Nixon’s departure there may not be enough playing time to go around. That means there may be more receivers on their way out, especially older players who want to find more guaranteed playing time before their career ends.
In addition to receiver, pay to attention to the running back position when it comes to the transfer portal. Jarek Broussard is the clear No. 1 heading into next season and junior Alex Fontenot, the Buffs’ leading rusher in 2019, will be healthy again in 2021. Behind them, the Buffs will bring back JAren Mangham, Joe Davis, Ashaad Clayton and others.
Don’t be surprised if one of the running backs looks for greener pastures.
