Colorado
Deion Sanders turn to Ryan Staub as Colorado quarterback foreseen by former coach
Georgia vs. Tennessee: Which team looks more complete going into Week 3?
USA TODAY’s Blake Toppmeyer and the Knoxville News Sentinel’s Adam Sparks break down where the Bulldogs and Vols are going into Week 3.
A former University of Colorado interim football coach has been predicting this would happen for quite some time.
It’s kind of a crazy story: Ryan Staub, who started the season as the third-string quarterback at Colorado, is now on track to become the new No. 1 QB for Colorado under coach Deion Sanders. Staub might even run away with the job if he performs well in Colorado’s next game Friday at Houston.
PATH TO PLAYOFF: Sign up for our college football newsletter
He’s that good, said Mike Sanford, who served as Colorado’s interim coach before Sanders was hired in December 2022. Sanford said he’s been “predicting this for kind of a while” based on his knowledge of Staub and how he stacks up against the other two top quarterbacks at Colorado.
“My take is he’s the best quarterback of the three, period, no matter how they got there,” Sanford said in an interview this week with USA TODAY Sports. “The world of football still comes down to a meritocracy, and whoever’s the best ultimately is going to have the opportunity to get out there and play.”
Sanford recruited Ryan Staub to Colorado before Deion Sanders
Sanford, now the coach at Valor Christian High in Colorado, has an admitted bias: He’s the coach who recruited Staub out of Southern California and helped persuade him to commit to Colorado about 10 months before Sanders arrived in Boulder. Sanford also counseled Staub after Sanders brought his son Shedeur with him to quarterback the Buffaloes in 2023 and 2024.
Sanford was let go by Colorado after the team finished 1-11 in 2022. But Staub stuck with his commitment and served as Shedeur’s backup in Sanders’ first two seasons at Colorado.
For those outside the program, this made Staub easy to overlook. He rarely played except for a 23-17 loss at Utah in the final game of 2023, when Shedeur sat out with a fractured back.
Then when Shedeur left for the NFL, Colorado installed two newcomers in front of Staub for 2025: Transfer Kaidon Salter, who led Liberty to a 13-1 season in 2023, and Julian “JuJu” Lewis, a four-star freshman recruit.
Sanford still believed. He just wasn’t sure Staub would get an opportunity.
“I didn’t know he’d get that chance, that legitimate chance, because his arrival to CU didn’t follow the narrative to CU that probably a lot of people want with the current CU program, which is a five-star (recruit) or major transfer who had been a really significant player,” Sanford said.
Deion Sanders gave him that chance last week in a 31-7 win at home against Delaware.
Ryan Staub’s unlikely shot under Deion Sanders
Colorado listed Staub as the No. 3 quarterback behind Salter and Lewis before both of the team’s games this season. Salter was the only quarterback who played in the season opener against Georgia Tech, a 27-20 loss. After that, Sanders said Lewis would get his first college playing time against Delaware, which he did when he came off the bench for two drives in the second quarter, both of which ended in punts.
But then came the unexpected twist. As part of a tryout of sorts, Sanders put in Staub with 45 seconds in the first half, with the Buffs leading 10-7. Staub missed on his first two passes. But then he took over, completing a 31-yard pass and then a 21-yard touchdown pass with nine seconds left before halftime. Then on his team’s first drive after halftime, he hurled a third-down pass for a 71-yard touchdown. By the time he left the game, the Buffs were up 31-7 after he led them on three touchdown drives in four possessions.
“This is a real-life story that’s happening right before your eyes,” Deion Sanders said at a news conference Tuesday.
Sanders said his goal in the Delaware game was to give each quarterback two series initially and then “somebody was going to come out of the pack.”
Sanders wouldn’t confirm if Staub would start at Houston Friday but acknowledged Staub has been getting a majority of the practice reps this week. He also said after the game last week that he had made up his mind about his next move at quarterback. “I’m not lost for direction,” he said.
Ryan Staub’s origin story at Colorado
Staub played high school football at West Ranch High in Stevenson Ranch, California, north of Los Angeles. It’s close to Interstate 5 near Six Flags Magic Mountain and is situated in a “dang wind tunnel,” as Sanford remembers it when he visited him there as Colorado’s offensive coordinator under then-head coach Karl Dorrell.
“I went out there to watch him throw,” Sanford said. “He was sweet, man, really, really good throwing session, did not miss throws. … I was super impressed that here’s a guy who’s not super tall (6-foot-1) and doesn’t have massive hands, and he just consistently was just piercing into headwinds, piercing it and throwing super accurate passes to two or three of his high school receivers. He just didn’t miss.”
Staub wasn’t highly recruited but got some scholarship offers, including from Arizona before committing to Colorado. He led his high school team to a 19-4 record as a starter and had 5,422 yards passing along with 687 yards rushing on 66 carries. Besides his throwing ability, Sanford admired his humble but confident character and marveled at his running ability.
“I was shocked at how he was willing to put his face in the fan and get physical,” Sanford said.
Staub then waited his turn at Colorado even though it didn’t look like it would ever come.
He could have transferred for a better chance elsewhere but didn’t. Why not?
“To be honest, I don’t know,” Staub said after the Delaware game. “I kind of fell in love with the process. I really enjoyed being here. I enjoyed being in this building under our coach. … I didn’t really know where I was at. I stuck my head down and just decided to keep working. And I got rewarded for that.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
Colorado
Driver dies days after head-on collision in Colorado Springs; surviving driver may have been involved in a race, police say
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – One person is dead after unwittingly getting in the middle of a car race over the weekend.
Police say the victim was traveling westbound on Briargate Boulevard near Lexington Drive when an eastbound car slammed into them head-on.
“Preliminary information indicated that the eastbound vehicle had been engaged in a speed contest with another vehicle prior to the collision,” the Colorado Springs Police Department wrote in a blotter post on the crash.
Both drivers were taken to the hospital with serious injuries, but at the time they were transported, the injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.
“It was later reported that the driver of the westbound vehicle died as a result of complications related to surgery stemming from the crash,” police said.
CSPD’s Major Crash Team is investigating the head-on collision. Speed is suspected as a factor in the crash.
There’s currently no word on whether the surviving driver will face charges.
Copyright 2026 KKTV. All rights reserved.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – Colorado voters will be asked in November whether or not state laws should change on how youth sports are organized and who is allowed to have certain surgeries in the state.
Protect Kids Colorado (PKC) is an organization that worked to get initiatives 109 and 110 on the ballot. Kevin Lundberg, a republican and former Colorado State Senator and State Representative, serves on the organization’s Board of Directors.
According to it’s website, PKC “is a grassroots, We the People movement to educate, unify, and mobilize … any concerned citizen to protect kids from becoming victims of a dangerous and false ideology.”
Several LGBTQ+ advocates in Colorado oppose the initiatives, including One Colorado. On Instagram, the organization called the measures “dangerous” and “anti-trans.”
Initiative 109 asks voters to make a new state law, requiring students compete on sports teams aligned with their biological sex, starting in kindergarten and lasting through higher education. There would be an exception for females to join male teams if there is no female team available. Schools and athletic associations would have to designate teams as male, female or coeducational.
Initiative 110 seeks to prohibit biological sex-altering surgery on minors. Doctors would not be allowed to provide such procedures, and public insurance companies, including Medicaid reimbursement, would not be allowed to pay for them.
Leaders with Inside Out Youth Services (IOYS), an LGBTQ+ advocacy group based in Colorado Springs, say these measures would harm young people.
“The message that this would send to our young people is that they matter less than their peers,” said Ollie Glessner with IOYS. “It would send the message that they don’t exist, their identities don’t exist and aren’t worth protecting.”
Erin Lee, Executive Director for PKC, says the measures secure protections that previous state legislative proposals have sought to secure but failed.
“These are not right versus left issues, these are just right versus wrong issues. And so we wanted to give the people a way to still put these common sense safeguards in place for children,” Lee said.
Similar proposals are being considered by congress within the SAVE Act.
The election is November 3.
Copyright 2026 KKTV. All rights reserved.
At the Legacy Museum, facing America’s racist past is a path, not a punishment
Intel and LG Display may have beaten Apple and Qualcomm with the best laptop battery life ever
US troops brace for ‘hit-and-run’ guerilla attacks as 82nd Airborne deploys to Iran, military analyst warns
New Jersey Gov Sherrill signs law barring ICE agents from wearing face coverings to shield identities
Chronic back pain may have met its match with hormone treatment, scientists say
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Indiana Members Credit Union announced as new anchor tenant at Bottleworks District
New Jersey Gov Sherrill signs law barring ICE agents from wearing face coverings to shield identities
Escalation in the Middle East – Not Europe’s war? MEPs in the Ring
War with Iran disrupts fertilizer exports as U.S. farmers prepare for planting season
White House unleashes on Raskin for clinging to ‘deranged’ Jack Smith ‘lies’ in latest Trump docs flare-up
‘Keffiyehs seized, left to die’: Inside the Palestine Action hunger strike
-
Detroit, MI1 week agoDrummer Brian Pastoria, longtime Detroit music advocate, dies at 68
-
Georgia1 week agoHow ICE plans for a detention warehouse pushed a Georgia town to fight back | CNN Politics
-
Movie Reviews1 week ago‘Youth’ Twitter review: Ken Karunaas impresses audiences; Suraj Venjaramoodu adds charm; music wins praise | – The Times of India
-
Science1 week agoIndustrial chemicals have reached the middle of the oceans, new study shows
-
Science1 week agoHow a Melting Glacier in Antarctica Could Affect Tens of Millions Around the Globe
-
Culture1 week agoTest Your Memory of Great Lines From Classic Irish Poems
-
Sports5 days agoIOC addresses execution of 19-year-old Iranian wrestler Saleh Mohammadi
-
New Mexico3 days agoClovis shooting leaves one dead, four injured