Head coach Deion Sanders is heading into year four at Colorado, and the schedule his predecessor left behind is already working against him before a single game is played.

ESPN's analyst Pete Thamel broke it down on the College GameDay Podcast on July 10 alongside Dan Wetzel and Max Olson. His take on Colorado's non-conference slate was direct.

"They are scheduled to fail," Thamel said. "And Rick George left them with that."

Rick George was Colorado's athletic director. Thamel is pointing out that the schedule he created was incredibly difficult to make the school money. He then stepped down, leaving Sanders trapped with a brutal calendar that could easily ruin his season.

Thamel explained exactly what that means for Sanders heading into what could be a defining season.

"I would guess Colorado is the only power conference team that's going to play two Power Four road games in the non-conference this year," Thamel said on the ESPN College GameDay podcast. "They go to Georgia Tech, and then they go to Northwestern."

That is an unusual burden for any program to carry. Most Power Four teams either schedule home-heavy non-conference slates or mix in one tough road game at most. Colorado is doing neither.

The full non-conference slate tells the story. Colorado goes to Georgia Tech first, comes home to play Weber State, then travels to Northwestern before opening Big 12 play on the road at Baylor.

Four weeks in, and three of them are genuinely winnable but not comfortable. One bad start and the heat on Sanders turns up fast.

Thamel acknowledged the business reality behind the scheduling, though.

"Some of it is pro market, right?" Thamel said in the same appearance. "You got to get butts in the seats. Colorado is always scheduled pretty aggressively."

Road games bring in money and keep Colorado in the national conversation. The flip side is that losing those games keeps them in the conversation for all the wrong reasons.

Last season, Colorado went 3-9 in the Big 12. Sanders is entering year four, and the pressure to win has never been higher.

The Big 12 needs Sanders to succeed more than anyone will admit

Analyst Max Olson did not hold back on what is really at stake here. It goes way beyond Colorado's record.

"The Big 12 needs a successful Colorado," Olson said on the same podcast. "They need BYU and the rest of these programs that have been close to break through and make a playoff."

The Big 12 has not had multiple teams in the College Football Playoff in the same year since the format expanded, and the conference needs that to change.

"That will certainly be a game where the losing coach will very likely be under a heat lamp," Thamel said of the Baylor opener, per the same podcast appearance.

If Sanders struggles out of the gate with that non-conference schedule, the conversation about his future in Boulder will start before October arrives.

Do you think Deion Sanders can overcome the schedule and save his job at Colorado in 2026? Let us know in the comments.

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Written by

Farheen Fathima

Edited by

Zaid Quraishi