Texas Tech Game Helps Put Shedeur Sanders Into Perspective

From a fan’s perspective, Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders led a comeback back and beat No. 44 ranked Texas Tech 41-27.

WATCH FULL GAME COLORADO VS. TEXAS TECH

However, that’s not how I take in these games. I watch them through what I call, NFL colored glasses. In other words, when I watch Sanders play, I’m analyzing him from an NFL perspective. I’m looking at him as an NFL translation.

In the Buffaloes’ previous game vs. Cincinnati a graphic was put up on the screen during the telecast that explained offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur’s “Path to Success,” and “QB Pillars” when it comes to offensive game planning for his quarterback. The four bullet points were “Match-ups, Space, Leverage, and Numbers.”

This week against Texas Tech, things came into even sharper focus during the telecast (part of the reason I love studying televised games).

The telecast revealed that Texas Tech had the No. 132 ranked pass defense, Colorado ranked top-30 in the country in yards after catch (YAC) and Colorado ranked top-25 in screen percentage.

Well, well, well…

What does this information tell me?

For starters, we need to put Sanders’ 20 out of 43 for 291 yards, 3 touchdowns and 0 interceptions vs. Texas Tech into context.

Outside of that, it seems Colorado’s offense and Sanders success has a whole lot to do with matchups and throwing into established throwing windows (space and leverage). There also seems to be a whole lot of screens and yards after the catch going on.

Here’s an example of such an ‘established throwing window.’

Now onto the game

The offense looked conservative in the first half as Texas Tech and they took a 13-10 lead into halftime.

Granted, Sanders did hit Colorado wide receiver Travis Hunter on a couple nice throws into the intermediate route level (11-19 yards). One was against press man coverage (cornerback is lined up on the receiver pre-snap) and the other (pictured above) was into off-man coverage (cornerback is lined up off the receiver a few yards pre-snap). There was another incomplete intermediate passing attempt into press-man coverage and one deep incompletion too. Other than that, it was a bevy of short safe passes with some YAC mixed in.

In fact, that’s how the Buffaloes got their lone touchdown in the opening half, on a wide receiver bubble screen to LaJohntay Webster that turned it into a 23-yard touchdown.

It was cool when they talked about how Sanders “calmed his team” in response to their first-half frustrations.

Second half

Colorado Head Coach Deion Sanders stated that, ‘we’re a second half team,’ according to Fox reporter Allison Williams, as the third quarter began, and he was right.

Sanders came out throwing a 10-yard slant to Webster into a small throwing window between two defenders. He released this throw against an off-man zone combo coverage as Webster was breaking on the route. Zone coverage is when defenders are assigned a certain area of the field to cover. That drive ended with a 7-yard touchdown scamper by Sanders.

Colorado scored again on a short 5-yard fade pass from Sanders to wide receiver Will Sheppard against tight man coverage into the corner of the end zone, and then struck again on a bubble screen that wide receiver Travis Hunter turned into a 24-yard score.

The Buffaloes took a 31-20 lead into the fourth quarter, and added a field goal and a defensive score to win 41-27.

NFL takeaway

The positives on Sanders:

• Fought from behind on the scoreboard to win
• Zero pass breakups (PBUs)

The negatives on Sanders:

• Held the ball longer in the pocket
• Tended to pat the ball pre-delivery
• Tended to lock in with receivers
• High dose of one-read throws
• Ball placement was off at times
• It was nothing but short passes to open targets and 5/6 passes to the intermediate route level into established throwing windows
• No deep completions (three attempts)
• Out of rhythm most of the game
• Phased by pressure in his face

I’m also wondering out loud if Sanders is seeing the whole field on these two sacks (sacked three times in the game).

He also had this incident with a BALL BOY shown below. Not a good look.

Daniel Kelly is a former NFL Scout with the New York Jets. He was hired on the regime which featured Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick, Scott Pioli, Mike Tannenbaum, and Dick Haley. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief for First Round Mock, and has written for Sports Illustrated (Lions, Jets, and 49ers), NFL Draft Diamonds, and Yardbarker, as well as a featured guest on ESPN Radio and Fox Sports Radio. For more information about him visit his website at whateverittakesbook.com. Follow on Twitter @firstroundmock.