Some Colorado football alumni are scratching their heads at Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter having their numbers retired.
The dynamic duo, who put the university back on the map, are having their numbers, 2 and 12, respectively, retired this weekend, less than a week before they are taken, likely in the top five, in the NFL Draft.
The conversation has become polarizing, and former CU star Chad Brown weighed in.
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Colorado Buffalos quarterback Shedeur Sanders (2) with wide receiver Travis Hunter (12) against the Arizona Wildcats at Arizona Stadium. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)
“Everything’s black or white — either I am a jealous, old hater who needs to cry in my old man tears, or I’m exactly right in ‘I can’t believe Coach Prime would do this,'” Brown told TMZ Sports.
But he believes “the truth is somewhere in the middle there.”
Brown made it clear both athletes should be considered as all-time program greats.
“While Travis certainly deserves his flowers and deserves to have his number retired, to forget the greatest era in college football at CU, which I was a part of when we won a national championship, it also feels like a slight,” Brown said. “So, two things can be true at once. These guys deserve their flowers, but guys in the past also deserve those.
Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter (Imagn)
“I’m not saying they don’t deserve it. I’m saying there’s lots of other deserving players who probably should come first.”
Brown also noted that the bar for Colorado isn’t necessarily low. Only four numbers had previously been retired by the program. The most recent was Rashaan Salaam’s No. 19 in 2017. Before that, Bobby Anderson’s No. 11 was retired in 1970.
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“If we were a program which handed these things out all the time, I think myself and a lot of other former alumni would look at this through a very, very different lens,” Brown said. “But considering how incredibly conservative we have been, and now to do it to two guys who are both on campus still — their graduating class hasn’t even left campus yet — it feels a bit odd, a bit premature. And to not have some kind of waiting period, to not do any type of procedure, established norms with this, it just strikes a lot of folks as very, very odd.”
Brown added that he believes “most” former Buffaloes “feel the same way that I do.”
Sanders and Hunter followed Sanders’ father, Deion, from Jackson State, and while their first campaign ended in disappointment, the second season was much better. Late in the season, the Buffaloes controlled their own destiny for the College Football Playoff, but a loss to Kansas helped kill those hopes.
Shedeur Sanders, left, and Travis Hunter of the Colorado Buffaloes speak with the media at Zouk Nightclub at Resorts World Las Vegas July 21, 2023, in Las Vegas. (Louis Grasse/Getty Images)
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Hunter, the two-way star, won the Heisman Trophy, and Hunter and Sanders are in the conversation to be the second and third picks of the draft next week.
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