Between the Racing Lines | Formula One is complicated, confusing and constantly evolving. This story is part of our guide to help any fan — regardless of how long they’ve watched the sport or how they discovered it — navigate the pinnacle of motorsports.

Box, box.

Every Formula One fan is familiar with that radio message, the call for a driver to head in for a pit stop. Whether it’s changing tires, serving a time penalty or repairing damage, the pit stop is one of the most strategically important moments during any grand prix. The longer you spend off the track, the farther behind you fall. McLaren holds the world record for the fastest pit stop — 1.80 seconds, set during the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix — but no team has matched the consistency of Red Bull’s blazing pace.

For each of the last six seasons, the Milton Keynes-based team has won the DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award based on their stop times throughout the year. They should repeat in 2024, holding nine of the 10 fastest stops over the last five races. The top three came from the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, where Red Bull stunned the F1 world with two flawless double stacks, changing the tires on Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez’s cars in rapid succession. The first took 4.18 seconds; the second, 3.95 seconds.

Best double stack ever? 🤔⏱️#F1 || #ChineseGP 🇨🇳pic.twitter.com/V8iSDF7Y8e

— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) April 21, 2024

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Whether a routine stop or a double stack, pit stops are choreographed dances. They begin the moment activity buzzes in the garage as more than 20 team members hurry out to their positions in the pitlane, waiting for the drivers to pull into the box. As Jonathan Wheatley, Red Bull’s Sporting Director, said, “Your perfect pitstop involves everyone having that perfect two seconds.”

It’s a game of millimeters and milliseconds. Here’s how it goes down.

The positions

Pit stops are a whirlwind of noise and speed, typically taking 2.5 seconds or less. The drivers need to hit their marks within the outlined area, and the crew members then jack up the front and back of the car, swap out the four wheels, and lower the car — all in unison when nailed perfectly.

“You get a buzz,” said Phil Turner, the team’s chief mechanic. “You get that adrenaline rush that you know you’ve had a good pit stop. You just tell by the sound, the noise, and how quick the car drops.”

It starts with the people, all of whom hold other team positions in addition to being on the pit crew. Teams are limited by how many people can be trackside, and some roles require people to be at computers when pit stops unfold. Wheatley described a pit stop as “an endeavor by 22 human beings.”

The wheels

Number of people: 12

This grouping is a trio per wheel — wheel off, wheel on and a wheel gunman. For wheel off and wheel on, strength is a requirement, said Jack Harrison, a mechanic on the team and a ‘wheel on’ member. Each wheel weighs over 44 pounds (20 kg). “You’ve got to have some sort of size to be able to manipulate the wheel to where you want it to be.”

The call is typically given around 15 seconds out, and the ‘wheel on’ crew carries the tires from the garage to the pit box. All three at the four tire locations crouch, and the wheel gunman readies to loosen and tighten the wheel nuts as the car slams to a halt. “I don’t ever think the car’s gonna hit me,” said wheel gunman Callum Adams. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but it’s a matter of trusting the driver will stop where they’ve practiced. Adams’ favorite part of his role is his proximity to the car because when it’s dropped, he can see the clutch engage and the wheels spin.

What may surprise fans about the wheel off, wheel on process is that the wheel nut stays attached to the tire itself. The wheel gunman loosens the wheel nut before the car has stopped, Adams said, and they’re working “on the wheel nut for the new wheel before it’s even on the car. That’s where you make up the time.” The ‘wheel off’ crew member is taking the tire off as the car is coming off the ground, thanks to the jacks.

Jackmen

Number of people: 4

This grouping includes two main players: a front and rear jackman.

Because the cars are so low to the ground, both jacks need to lift at the same time. If the car stops short, front jackman Chris Gent said he struggles “to get the jack under the car because the car is so low, and the jack will only go under really when the car is on all four wheels.” If the rear jack lifts before the front, Gent says he has to signal for the car to be lowered to fit his jack under the car.

“It’s also awkward (if) they stop on the first few laps of a race when the car has a full amount of fuel, and then the car is so much heavier than whether it’s midway or towards the end,” Gent added. “It feels completely different to jack it up when it’s a lap or two into the race.”

Each jack is different, but Gent described his as one that can rotate and has two levers, one that releases the jack and the other that allows the jack to tilt.

“When the car arrives, we jack it up, and you can jack it to a certain point, and then you can relax because it has two little feet that come out so the car is always at the same height, which is obviously quite important for the gunmen,” Gent said. He later added that, in theory, the jackmen don’t have to pull the lever to release the jack, which drops the car to the ground, but he does so in case there is a failure in the lights system.

There are spare jackmen for both positions, just in case of an issue. If a front wing is damaged, teams will use a side jack instead and replace the wing.

Gent has been hit by a car before but “never any real damage other than being knocked back quite a long way.” When it comes to getting over the initial reaction to jump out of the way of a moving vehicle, Gent said, “A lot of it is down to trust, isn’t it?”

Car steadier 

Number of people: 2

When the car is lifted, two people grab hold of the cockpit area, keeping it stable as other crew members do their work. If needed, they may clean the mirrors or radiators.

Front wing adjuster

Number of people: 2

These crew members help make aerodynamic changes to the wing, which impact understeer or oversteer based on the driver’s feedback.

Lollipop (aka the green light) 

This resembles how NASCAR teams hold out a sign as drivers enter the pit box. Within the world of F1, this individual would give the signal for when the car can release, but over time, it’s become more electronic. A system now indicates when the driver can leave the pit box.

The guns and jacks are essentially linked to a traffic light system of sorts, but the decision of when the car is released lies with the crew member with the override button, who monitors pit lane traffic. The green lights indicate the wheels are secure, and once there is space for a safe release, the driver gets the go-ahead to exit the pit box. If the stewards deem a pit box exit to be unsafe release, drivers may face a five-second time penalty.

The practice

Teams practice pit stops during a race weekend, and fans can watch from pit lane or their seats during certain windows. But these sessions also take place back at the factory, both in and out of the season. Harrison said Red Bull will practice anywhere from five to 20 pit stops during these sessions. Wheatley commented how, with Red Bull, “your first pitstop is likely to be for a race win.”

However, as Harrison noted, there is work that is done before a “real physical practice,” like what fans see during a race weekend. Whether it’s with the entire crew or just the specific group, like the corner crews, they’ll visualize the pit stops with props. Harrison said, “We’ll be using those to be able to help you. Even just with the movements, not necessarily the weight of the wheel.” It’s about being limber and warming up for the real deal.

Practicing with the entire pit stop team is easier, he said, because a big component of an efficient stop is listening to each other. As part of the corner crew, he finds it helpful to hear the jackmen and the four-wheel guns, but he can also see the different parts of the pit stop in his peripheral vision. Each grouping has slightly different techniques, so practicing with the same people becomes a strength.

“The size of people doesn’t make a difference,” Harrison said. “The amount of time you’ve been doing it with the same people makes a difference because I will put my foot in a certain position, which may be different to the left rear side. I’ll wedge my foot underneath the (wheel) gunman’s knee, and then I can feel where he moves. And then with sight as well, I can see where he moves so I can move to him.

“So if the car goes long or short, he’ll move his body to react to that, whereas I’ll do the same with my body to where his body moves.”

Given the length of the F1 season and because life happens, teams do select backups for each position. During practice, people swap in and out.

As for physical requirements, Harrison said core strength, stability, overall strength, and cardio are all key, and the crew works towards staying nimble. For the wheel on position, for example, core and leg exercises are helpful because you’re essentially in a squat position, waiting to fit the wheel to the car, Harrison said. Adams said that flexibility and core strength are important for the wheel gunman because if the car stops short or long, they need to adjust quickly while being low to the ground, not losing their balance.

An effective pit stop extends beyond the physical. It’s about the senses and muscle memory. The Milton Keynes-based team decided to try executing a pit stop in complete darkness during the off-season, and Adams said, “It made everyone sort of realize how much their role was done on feel and muscle memory.”

The final product

A pit stop technically begins the day before a race, Wheatley said.

That’s when the team discusses race strategy. Come race day, he’ll brief the team if there could be something unusual coming, and they’ll perform a series of stops during their routine practice session, mixing it up some to prepare. During the race, Wheatley keeps the team up to speed on how the race is unfolding strategically. Pit stops are about nailing the right timing, such as trying to do the opposite strategy of a rival to gain positions. Wheatley said, “Generally, we make a decision to pit, I think, later than some teams would be comfortable with. We like to have a team that can react very quickly and in a very short lead time ahead of a pit stop.”

When it looks like the call to pit is coming, Wheatley begins preparing the team, not getting too excited. “If I’m calm, everyone should be calm.”

Then comes the countdown. The crew members file out of the garage in a specific order to avoid getting in each other’s way, Gent said. Typically, the farthest people will leave first, he added, “so you’re not climbing over people to get to your position.”

Any number of things could go wrong during a pit stop, like a wheel gun failure (which is why they have spares). Mistakes do happen, like jacks not engaging properly on the first try. But as much as a smooth pit stop depends on the crew members, it’s also about the driver’s approach, specifically “the speed and consistency of deceleration into the pit box,” Wheatley said. If drivers don’t hit their marks, the other twenty-some crew members will need to adjust. That awareness also applies to the crew, particularly with the group changing the wheel. Sometimes the tires touch during the swap, and as Wheatley said, “When they touch, that’s when you get your 2.6-second stop and not a 2-second stop or a 1.8-second stop. So it’s down to marginal gains from that point.”

Another factor that can impact timings is the depth of the pit crew. In 2023, Wheatley said, Red Bull “faced immense challenges” with keeping a consistent first team because of the number of races, where they fell on the calendar, illness (a stomach bug floated around the Mexico City paddock, for example), and other life matters, like children being born. This is where the reserves come into play.

“Whilst it doesn’t mean you can do a 1.8-second pit stop every weekend, that’s not actually our target,” Wheatley said. “And so we need to have enough people trained and able to do 2.2-second pit stops every single time the car comes in the pits. And we’ve been lucky enough that we haven’t had such an illness that’s compromised that.”

At the heart of every pit stop are the people and the seamless teamwork. Each person’s routine is different, down to whether they watch the car come down pit lane or when they snap down their visor. Then comes the rhythm — stop, lift, wheels (and the loud whirring that comes with the guns), drop and release. Pit stops are a staple of an F1 grand prix weekend, yet each person describes the strategic event differently.

Turner opted for “a massive adrenaline rush.” Adams described them as “exhilarating” while Harrison chose “rewarding.”

Truthfully, it’s an art.

(Graphics by Drew Jordan/The Athletic. Lead image: Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images; Design: Eamonn Dalton/The Athletic)

Imagine having done the same thing for something like 30 years, being better at it than just about anyone who has ever lived, and then one day, it’s all completely new. 

And so it is for Rafael Nadal in this through-the-looking-glass spring. For years, no place felt more like home than a red clay court. He could lose matches sometimes. Everyone does. But he almost never played poorly.

He could leave his guts on the court with an effort that would leave most of the population unable to walk for weeks. Then he would wake up in the morning and, within a few hours, be able to start preparing to do it all over again. And then, sometimes, he really would do it all over again.

Those days are done, perhaps never to return. Nearly a year and a half since a debilitating hip injury, nearly a year since major surgery to try to fix it, nearly two years since he was a mainstay of the professional tour, each match, each day, has become an experiment and a riddle for Nadal. 

How much can he push? How long can he go? How does his body feel when he opens his eyes for the first time each morning, when he rolls out of bed, when he leans over to pick up his 18-month-old son, Rafa, when he walks onto the court for a warm-up session and strokes the ball for the first time? 

The latest test came Tuesday night against Jiri Lehecka, the talented young Czech with the limber physique and easy power that Nadal, always the brutalist, never had. But nothing about the match really had anything to do with the contrasts he and Nadal presented, or really even the score. 

This was all about the latest of Nadal’s experiments.

A little more than 24 hours before he and Lehecka took the court, Nadal had gone three sets and more than three hours against Pedro Cachin of Argentina. In both matches, the most important numbers on the scoreboard were counting the elapsed time. How many rolling backhands and bullwhip forehands could Nadal endure, or even want to endure, with his lodestar, the French Open, starting in 26 days.

Nadal is balancing fitness and pride in his final season (Mateo Villalba/Getty Images)

The first set went 57 minutes, with Lehecka surviving three tight service holds and capitalizing on a cluster of Nadal errors in the 11th game to break, before serving out the set. Lehecka then broke Nadal’s serve in the first game of the second set. Nadal’s balls started to fly long and into the net without it bothering him all that much, and it was hard not to think of how he had described his game plan moving forward the night before, after his three-hour fist-fight with Cachin. 

“Trying without doing crazy things, but trying,” he said, which is what Lehecka’s 7-5, 6-4 win that lasted a little over two hours ultimately looked like.

A third set and another hour might have qualified as a crazy thing under the circumstances.

Cachin, a 29-year-old journeyman who knows his way around a clay court, had given Nadal as much as he could handle and more than anyone had expected, digging in for long fights for points, forcing him to scramble across the baseline. A few years ago, this would have been another day of certainty for Nadal: the clay, the winning, the looking ahead to the next match knowing — within a very small margin — what version of himself would take the court. 

Instead, he walked the corridors of the Caja Magica Monday night, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head, and telling everyone who would listen that he had no idea what the future held. 

“I never recovered too bad after tough matches, I think even at 36 years old or 35,” said Nadal, who is now nearly 38. “Today is a completely different story. It’s not only about injuries. First thing is injuries. Second thing is about… I never spent almost two years without playing tennis tournaments.”

Everyone knows what this is all about for Nadal — figuring out whether it’s going to be worth his while to put his name in the draw at the French Open, the tournament he has won 14 times, where his record at Roland Garros is a ridiculous 112-3. He’s not going to go merely for an ovation and a bouquet, or to gaze at the nine-foot statue of him outside Court Philippe Chatrier.

GO DEEPER

Ghosts of clay courts past: Rafael Nadal’s comeback is really about his legacy

He knows his tennis is there, but he will only go if he believes his body will be there, too. This is best-of-five-set tennis, on clay, and matches are affairs that generally last close to three hours, maybe longer. His serve in its current iteration, slowed by injuries to his midsection, isn’t allowing him to grab many quick and easy points. Nearly everything he gets, he has to earn the hard way. Late in the second set on Tuesday night, 40 per cent of Lehecka’s serves had gone unreturned, allowing him to speed through holds of serve already rendered tricky by the booms of “Rafa, Rafa, Rafa” about his ears every time he stood up to the line. Asked about how he dealt with them, the Czech world No 31 could only puff out his cheeks and say, “I don’t know.”

Nadal’s figure was six per cent.

Nadal was ultimately unable to impose himself on Lehecka (Julian Finney/Getty Images)

He will have a day off between matches at the French Open, unlike the 24-hour turnaround from Cachin to Lehecka, but still, the past days in Madrid have brought his first experience in what feels like forever of the grind-recover-grind routine the sport demands. 

Ten days ago in Barcelona, he couldn’t do it, winning a match then essentially folding after losing the first set of a second. Had he pushed for more in that moment, he might have been back where he was in January, in a tuneup tournament in Brisbane ahead of the Australian Open. There, in his third match, he pushed too soon. He went to sleep with a tweak. In the morning, an MRI revealed it was a tear. Three months of recovery and many more moments of doubt ensued.

Maybe this was it? He could swing a racket, but anything close to trying to replicate the intensity of top-level competition was out of the question. Same with an intense three-hour training session. He just wasn’t strong enough. 

Madrid has been different. His strength is back, but it’s not chartable: he still doesn’t have any idea what will happen from one day to the next. 

“It’s unpredictable, that’s it, and you need to accept the unpredictable things today,” he said earlier this week. “I need to accept that.”

GO DEEPER

Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and the hunt for a graceful and glorious exit

In a sense, Nadal has been preparing for this moment for more than 20 years, ever since doctors detected a congenital defect in his foot that nearly derailed his career before it ever got started. He had to accept then an extremely uncertain future. Anything that followed was a kind of gift. 

The experience begat ‘Zen-Rafa,’ the player who years ago compared an opponent’s aces to the rain, something he had no control over and simply accepted. Now he was back where it all started and not just because he said Madrid is where he felt for the first time, back in 2003, that he could compete at the highest level.

Sure, Nadal would have preferred to win once again in this packed metal bandbox in front of 12,000 people who love him as they love little else. He is as big a sports hero as this country has ever produced, which Raul Gonzalez Blanco, the legendary Real Madrid and Spain striker, knows well. He was there watching against Cachin.

But Nadal knew he had already won by being able to answer the bell against Lehecka, something he could only hope he would be able to do when he closed his eyes the night before. Picking up some easy points on his serve marked another win. Those classic, loop-one-ball-then-crush-the-next-one combinations, the quick bends for the short-hop winners, the perfect slice volley when he followed his serve into the net midway through the second set — win, win, win. 

The moment when he sprinted to the baseline from his chair, one game from defeat, and 12,000 people stood and roared, and the noise rattled all around the metal building — that may have been the biggest win of all. They did it again on match point, then chanted his name when he sprayed a final backhand wide on what is likely his final match in the city.

Madrid’s tribute to Nadal after his defeat (Julian Finney/Getty Images)

He described the night as “very positive in many senses, not only sporting but also emotionally.”

“It’s been a gift to spend 21 years here,” Nadal told the crowd during a celebration on the court after the match. “The emotions, of playing in Madrid, playing on this court, are going to stay with me forever.”

Still, as much as Nadal has accepted the uncertainty of the future and soaking up the love, he is also making plans. He is playing himself into form now, trying to pass tests with every match so he can dream of magic, not just at the French Open but after, too. 

The Olympic Games are at Roland Garros. He wants to at least play doubles there with Carlos Alcaraz, who is well on his way to taking over from Nadal in the Spanish tennis imagination. Last week he committed to play the Laver Cup, the Team Europe vs Team World competition that his friend and rival Roger Federer created. That’s in September. 

Madrid brought four matches in six days. Assuming his body comes through all this, he will head to Rome for the Italian Open next week for another series of tests. Then comes the decision about the French Open.

That’s both imminent and a ways away. Nadal, who, in all his greatness has still somehow always managed to come off as a normalish guy, is day to day, as the saying goes — just as we all are.

(Top photo: Manuel Queimadelos/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)

Chase Sowell walked into Colorado’s football facility on the Sunday after the 2023 spring game and saw more than a dozen teammates lined up against a wall.

As each player entered the head coach’s office and emerged within minutes enraged or in tears, the second-year receiver nervously pondered his fate.

“We knew it was going to happen, but we didn’t know it was going to happen that soon,” Sowell said.

Deion Sanders, given his Power 5 head coaching shot in December 2022 after three successful years at Jackson State, had promised to clean house. He vowed talented transfers were on the way to replace anyone unprepared to play for him. And less than 24 hours after the Buffaloes’ ballyhooed ESPN-televised spring showcase, Sanders informed 20 scholarship players they were moving on.

“He didn’t sugarcoat it,” Sowell said. “He was telling me, ‘You’re coming off injury. I don’t think you will be one of the guys we need to start this year. We need guys that are going to be ready to play now.’”

Sanders didn’t need to use the word “cut.” Sowell understood it was time to pack his bags, enter the transfer portal and find a new home.

First-year coaches running off underperforming players are commonplace in college football. Dumping 20 in one day is not. By the end of the spring, 53 scholarship players transferred out of the program.

Colorado’s extreme roster makeover, unprecedented in modern college football history, yielded 87 newcomers and far more fascination about what Sanders could bring to Boulder. The Buffaloes were a downright phenomenon when they stunned TCU and started 3-0. They backslid hard, losing eight of nine Pac-12 games. Win or lose, Sanders got everyone watching – including his former players.

Where did they go?

Colorado’s castoffs went off on new journeys across college football. Fifteen matriculated to Power 5 programs. Twenty-two ended up on Group of 5 rosters, 11 went FCS or Division II, and two attended junior colleges. Three ex-Buffs went unsigned out of the portal and haven’t played since. And several had to fight the NCAA for the opportunity to keep playing.

Quarterback Owen McCown arrived at Colorado in 2022 with a freshman class desperate to turn around a program that had eight losing seasons over the past decade. The son of Minnesota Vikings assistant Josh McCown started three games as a freshman during the brutal 2022 season. Coach Karl Dorrell was fired after an 0-5 start. The Buffs got blown out almost weekly.

“Going through that rough season made us all close,” McCown said of his class. “And then, obviously, it all went away.”

Sanders walked into his first Colorado team meeting on Dec. 4, Tupac’s “All Eyez on Me” on the speakers, and delivered his first warning.

“I’m coming to restore, to replace, to re-energize some of y’all that are salvageable,” Sanders said. “I’m not going to lie. Everybody that’s sitting their butt in a seat ain’t going to have a seat when we get back.”

Sowell, a redshirt freshman from Houston, was unfazed.

“I don’t think he was being a d— about it,” Sowell said. “I think he was just being straight up: Prove to me that you can play.”

McCown skipped the team meeting. He was the third Colorado player to enter the transfer portal, going to UTSA, where he could start this fall. Sowell stayed to battle it out, but after season-ending surgery for a torn labrum, it was a tough time to be at his best. He was cleared to practice a week into spring ball.

Every day felt like a tryout. Sowell thought he had to be perfect to gain approval. He wasn’t himself. More stressed, more withdrawn. New coaching staffs can be disorienting for players, because they don’t know whom to trust. Sowell’s father grew up in Florida and revered Sanders, and Sowell didn’t want to disappoint his family by failing.

There was nowhere to hide. Cameras followed the team around constantly for Sanders’ Amazon documentary series and his son’s Well Off Media YouTube channel.

“It kinda felt like a reality TV show,” Sowell said.

It didn’t take long for returning Colorado players to figure out the narrative. Quarterback Shedeur Sanders, wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter and 19 more transfers were brought in for spring practice. They were the stars of the show.

“We felt like it was us vs. them instead of all of us together,” Sowell said. “That’s the best way I can put it. The new guys were going against the players that had already been there. It wasn’t a good environment to be in. It wasn’t a team environment.”

His freshman class was an inseparable group. The players lived on campus together, dined together and played pickup basketball together. They would return to the dorms at night that spring and talk openly about their predicament: What do we do?

On the morning of April 23, their group text blew up. Players were called into exit meetings with Sanders and told they couldn’t play at CU. One described the experience as going to see the Grim Reaper. Sowell’s meeting was his first one-on-one conversation with the head coach.

The following morning, Sowell said, players were locked out of Colorado’s football facility. They couldn’t grab their things from the locker room. They couldn’t grab a meal at the training table.

“When you’re gone, you’re gone,” Sowell said.

Sowell wanted to go where he could play as many snaps as possible. He picked ECU. It was a big move across the country for a Texas kid who knew hardly anything about the school. But he connected with receivers coach Dyrell Roberts and felt welcomed in his first team meeting with the Pirates.

They needed him, too. Sowell emerged as ECU’s No. 1 wide receiver, leading the team with 47 receptions for 622 yards and a touchdown.

Sowell says he’s happier than ever. His mom says he’s back to being his “true self” at ECU. A year later, he remains in touch with his freshman class in the group text.

Jordyn Tyson picked Arizona State. Dylan Dixson chose Missouri State. Grant Page and Simeon Harris are at Utah State. Anthony Hankerson and Van Wells left Colorado this offseason and are now at Oregon State.

Not one member of their 31-man signing class is still playing for Colorado.

Xavier Smith’s sitdown with Sanders was later Sunday. By then, the redshirt freshman safety knew what to expect. His father encouraged him to hope for the best. But he didn’t even get a one-on-one. Defensive coordinator Charles Kelly brought Smith and safety Oakie Salave’a into the office together.

“We sat on the sofa, and he’s talking to us, but he’s not even looking at us,” Smith said. “I’m looking Coach Kelly dead in his eyes. (Sanders) said he felt like I should hit the portal. He didn’t want me to waste a year thinking I could earn a spot.

“I was actually getting mad, like tears coming to my eyes. Because, bro, you never even tried to get to know me.”

Smith wasn’t shocked he was cut, given his injury history. He’d broken his right leg during his senior season in high school and again in the spring while rehabbing. He played in one game in 2022 but missed the rest of the season with a hamstring injury. Now Smith was finally healthy and, as a young defensive back from Atlanta, eager to learn from his Hall of Fame coach.

Smith assumed Sanders would dump older players and embrace the young talent he inherited. During the team meeting, he told himself: He’s not talking about me. I ain’t leaving.

During the spring, Smith felt more like an extra in the background of the reality show. He tried to make the most of second-team reps and made plays in the spring game but struggled to get Sanders’ attention. So as he sat on that couch and listened to Kelly encourage him to leave, sure, there was frustration.

“He was destroying guys’ confidence and belief in themselves,” Smith said. “The way he did it, it could’ve been done with a little more compassion.”

For Smith and many of the inexperienced players cut by Colorado, the spring transfer window was unnerving. Schools have limited scholarships available entering the summer, and it’s tougher to earn offers with limited game and practice tape. Among the 30 scholarship players who left the program after the spring game, 20 continued playing at the FBS level but only nine joined Power 5 programs.

Smith regained his confidence at Austin Peay. The FCS program in Clarksville, Tenn., provided an opportunity to play right away, and coach Scottie Walden won him over with his relentless enthusiasm. Smith caught up quickly to earn a starting role and Freshman All-America recognition on a 9-3 team that won its conference.

At the end of the season, Walden landed the head job at UTEP. Smith re-entered the transfer portal and followed him to El Paso.

“It’s rare you meet a head coach who genuinely wants to see every player on his roster succeed,” Smith said.

Jake Wiley did not get cut. But he wasn’t looking to stay.

The offensive tackle from Aurora, Colo., spent four years with the Buffaloes and saw it all. He committed to Mike MacIntyre in 2018, redshirted during Mel Tucker’s lone season, became a two-year starter under Dorrell and had five different offensive line coaches.

“That’s not a normal number,” Wiley said.

He stayed for the spring to finish his degree and to see if he fit with the new staff. On cut day, Wiley received an ominous text.

“In our O-line group chat, one of the offensive line coaches texted the group and said, ‘Good luck fellas,’” Wiley said, “and then he just removed all of them. It said these five people were removed from the chat. We were like, ‘Huh? What happened?’”

Two days after they entered the portal, Wiley joined them. He said players who survived the cut still felt unwanted and expendable. He was one of seven returning starters who departed that spring along with running back Deion Smith (BYU), receiver Montana Lemonious-Craig (Arizona), defensive linemen Jalen Sami (Michigan State) and Na’im Rodman (Washington State), cornerback Nikko Reed (Oregon) and safety Tyrin Taylor (Memphis).

“Let me tell you this, because this is something you may not know,” Sanders said last November on “The Dan Patrick Show.” “Maybe 20 kids we may have sat down with and said, ‘We may head in a different direction; I don’t know if this is gonna work out.’ Everybody else quit. They quit. You can’t hold me responsible.”

Wiley was overwhelmed by the number of calls he received upon entering the portal and narrowed his list to UCLA, Duke and Purdue. He flew to Los Angeles to watch a spring practice and was told the Bruins needed a tackle. Wiley loved the campus and liked staying in the Pac-12. It was an easy decision.

He didn’t learn he was moving to guard until the day before preseason camp. That’s a lot of new technique to learn in addition to a new offensive scheme. Wiley rotated in at right guard in UCLA’s first four games but then saw his playing time drop off considerably.

For many of his fellow ex-Buffs, this was a common issue. Among the 37 transfers who departed after Sanders was hired and landed at FBS schools, 23 did not start a game last season. Three former teammates – running back Jayle Stacks, receiver Maurice Bell and cornerback Nigel Bethel Jr. – went unsigned and didn’t play last season. Bell is now a trainer and working in real estate back home in California.

Going from playing to watching wasn’t fun, and Wiley admits he might’ve handled the letdown poorly if he were younger. He tried to respond with maturity.

“I wasn’t going to be that guy that was really complaining a lot or pouting and being negative,” he said. “If I wasn’t going to play, I wasn’t going to sit there and be a drain on the team.”

Wiley re-entered the portal in late November and relocated to Houston, where he’s once again playing tackle and helping a new coaching staff set a standard.

Wiley says he’ll always be a Colorado alum and fan, and he couldn’t help but marvel at the spectacle Sanders created.

“I never would’ve ever thought that Lil Wayne would be running the CU Buffs out of the tunnel,” Wiley said.

While his new Miami (Ohio) teammates enjoyed a day at Universal Studios in Orlando, Fla., Maddox Kopp testified via Zoom in a U.S. District Court hearing in West Virginia.

At the conclusion of the Dec. 13 hearing, District Judge John P. Bailey issued a 14-day temporary restraining order against the NCAA, granting immediate eligibility to college athletes who’ve transferred multiple times. The TRO halted the organization’s attempts to enforce a one-time transfer rule. And it was a former Colorado quarterback who helped make history.

Kopp was required to sit out the 2023 season as a two-time transfer. So were defensive back Tayvion Beasley (San Diego State), tight end Seydou Traore (Mississippi State) and offensive linemen Yousef Mugharbil (NC State) and Noah Fenske (Southern Illinois). Beasley, Traore and Mugharbil came to Colorado as transfers with Sanders and were gone by the end of the spring.

Kopp was sitting in the front row when Sanders arrived. He’d trained with Shedeur Sanders and knew what came next. In his first visit with the QBs, Sanders told them Shedeur was on the way and their job was to make him better.

“I was just sitting there thinking, it is what it is,” Kopp said. “I need to find a new home and a place that wants me.”

Kopp was starting over again after one year at Houston and one at Colorado. He transferred to Miami (Ohio) and built his case for an eligibility waiver.

The NCAA significantly altered its waiver criteria in January 2023. Getting run off by a school was no longer a valid justification. Kopp needed to provide a documented medical or safety-related reason for leaving. His attorney argued Colorado did not make accommodations for learning disabilities Kopp has dealt with since elementary school. The NCAA denied his waiver and then denied his appeal in August.

Fenske went through the same ordeal. The offensive lineman left Iowa in 2021 for mental health reasons and was a backup with the Buffaloes for two seasons. He didn’t like what he heard in Sanders’ team meeting.

Fenske rode back from the meeting with lineman Alex Harkey and said he was entering the portal. Harkey told him he was overreacting. Harkey was cut after the spring game and is now at Texas State.

“There’s not one person that watches that video – even the people who love him – and says he’s not gonna sh–can everybody,” Fenske said.

Fenske transferred to FCS Southern Illinois and was set to be the Salukis’ starting left tackle last fall. He submitted his waiver request in July and waited 70 days for a rejection in September, three games into the season. He kept preparing to play, believing he’d win on appeal. The final denial from the NCAA came Oct. 17, days before Southern Illinois faced No. 1 South Dakota State. Fenske broke down in tears in coach Nick Hill’s office upon learning the news.

“It didn’t matter if we had letters of recommendation from (Colorado athletic director) Rick George and (Colorado interim coach) Mike Sanford,” he said. “It didn’t matter if we had proof that I was seeking counseling and wasn’t getting it. They decided that my mental health was not dangerous enough to myself that I needed to leave there.”

The eligibility cases of North Carolina’s Tez Walker and several men’s basketball players generated national attention and political pressure. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost led a seven-state antitrust suit filed in December.

Though Kopp was eligible to play in the Cure Bowl against Appalachian State since the school semester had ended, he was eager to push for reform and help athletes avoid the NCAA’s complicated waiver process. Xavier Smith was able to transfer to UTEP after the TRO and said he’s thankful Kopp went the extra mile.

“It takes the power out of their hands,” Kopp said of the NCAA. “If they’re gonna make these rules, I just want them to be consistent.”

You know you’re married to the game when you get a restraining order against the NCAA to play in the Avocados From Mexico Cure Bowl. 🫡 pic.twitter.com/gYGOk8CEHC

— The Walmart Wolverine (@TheWalMartWolv) December 16, 2023

Empowered by the court ruling and the NCAA’s subsequent adoptions of new rules permitting unlimited transfers, more college football players are entering the portal than ever before. At Colorado, more than 30 Buffs are moving on, including 18 transfers Sanders brought in to replace those he cut.

Their exits have not brought the same shock-and-awe fanfare of last spring’s purge, but the motivations are similar: Sanders retooling with eyes on dramatic improvement while his departing players seek better situations. The head coach joked on a podcast this month that the portal is akin to room service.

“I can order what I want,” Sanders said.

For the Colorado players he didn’t want, those 53 transfers whose locations and lives changed over the past 12 months, the bitterness is beginning to wear off.

“My experience with Deion wasn’t one where I’m going to go bash him,” Sowell said. “There were things I agreed with that he did and things I didn’t agree with that he did. But that’s like any head coach. When he came in and made his decisions, I trusted God and I said everything happens for a reason.

“And I got to meet Deion Sanders, so I can’t really complain. I got to meet one of the best to ever do it.”

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photo: Ryan King / Getty Images)