BOULDER – Shedeur Sanders flu under the radar. Dude had a day of practice last week. A. Before going viral, No. 2 felt viral.

“It was hard to get the chemistry back with everyone,” the CU Buffs QB1 explained early Sunday morning after battling the flu and throwing for 323 yards in a 34-23 win over Cincinnati. “Because you lose weight, you lose strength, you lose a lot of things.”

Don’t touch. Don’t zip. Don’t feel. Not mojo. Shedeur completed his first 15 steps. In one half. Against a good Cincinnati team. Against a Bearcats defense that allowed 19 completions for Texas Tech last month – for an entire game.

Before the evening, Sanders threw it 30 times. He completed 25, with two touchdowns through the air and one on the ground. From a sick man who planted on one good leg towards the end of the third quarter.

Travis Hunter checks in at 185 pounds. I mean, he’s recording it so much space on your Heisman Trophy ballot? Real?

“They’re not going to give it to two players on the same team,” thought Sanders, son of second-year CU coach Deion Sanders, with a shrug when asked if he and Hunter would split, if not chew, each other’s Heisman. candidacies.

“Me and Trav, (we) just deal with it. It won’t happen like that… so it is what it is. I don’t really look into that deeply. Of course, I just want Travis to win. And that will almost be like I won. Because I threw him the ball.”

With that, Shedeur smiled. It made even the most cynical scribes in the room chuckle.

“Travis, he is hands down the best player in college football,” Son of Prime continued. “And I’m happy he wins it. And that really – that just makes my day there.

When ESPN.com asked fourteen staff writers to participate in a midseason Heisman poll on October 15, Shedeur did not receive a single vote.

Boise State tailback Ashton Jeanty led the practice field with 11 first-place finishes, followed by Hunter (three), Miami QB Cam Ward, Oregon QB Dillon Gabriel and Indiana QB Kurtis Rourke.

It’s Jeanty’s reward to lose, in large part because his Broncos won’t lose — with UNLV out of the way, there isn’t a Mountain West/2-Pac team on the slate that Boise can’t beat.

Rourke and coach Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers are all legit, but the former is in disarray. Additionally, the Crimson and Cream routed Washington last weekend without the services of their aforementioned QB.

Gabriel’s thrown for 18 scores with five picks; Sanders has gone six for 21. Ward has defeated four teams with winning records; Sanders has defeated three. Oh, and in those games, they threw for an average of 359.3 yards while sporting a 10-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

By the way, 15 for 15 to open a game is a new CU school record, bumping Joel Klatt and Steven Montez’s 12 consecutive completions into a tie for No. 2.

Another day of practice. A.

What is that? Still no room?

“Wow, wow, wow,” said Deion Sanders after his Buffs became bowl eligible against Cincy, moving to 6-2 and 4-1 in the Big 12, while also staying within striking distance of BYU, Iowa State and Kansas State in the hunt for the national title. “And they don’t even mention him for the Heisman? He’s not even mentioned? Oh, my bad. He is my son. That’s why.”

It’s not. Hunter’s unicorn story is honestly the bigger problem, the way it sucks up the oxygen on the ballot that Jeanty hasn’t yet swallowed.

Although that is no excuse for the voters. Not at all. Since 2004, teammates have finished in the top 5 in Heisman voting seven times, and four times since 2016. The last teammates to finish in the top 3 in the same Heisman voting cycle came in 2020 when Alabama’s DeVonta Smith (No. 1) and Mac Jones (No. 3) led a very Tide-oriented group of finalists. The last two to land in the top 6 in the same year were Bama’s Bryce Young (No. 1) and Will Anderson Jr. (No. 5) in 2021.

Some national resistance to CU football, you understand that. Coach Prime has overturned just about every sacred cow in the college game, from recruiting, NIL deals, sponsorships and staffing to media access. Like the Oakland Raiders of old, his Buffs are brash and bold, fast and furious, and they don’t care what you or I think. And that will never happen.

But every response to Shedeur is pure Looney Tunes.

Consider: He has as many wins in a season and a half as a Buffs starter (10) as CU won in 2019 (five), 2021 (four) and 2022 (one) combined. On the Buffs’ career lists, his 48 CU TD since 2023 passes only Sefo Liufau (60), Steven Montez (63) and Cody Hawkins (63), all of whom piled up their marks over more games.

Do you want a man who combines great ability with dedication, perseverance and hard work? Go back and watch No. 2 try to run the CU offense after suffering what appeared to be an ankle injury late in the third stanza, a blow that left him with a noticeable limp between plays. But in the final 21 minutes of the second half, Sanders still had enough power to complete four of five throws for 64 yards and get the Buffs over the line.

“(I’m) a little confused,” Shedeur admitted Sunday. “But we won, so it will make everything feel a little better. Certainly.”