The only way Pat Shurmur reaches the College Football Playoff next winter is if a pal buys him a ticket.

Deion Sanders? Shedeur Sanders? Travis Hunter? The Buffs should be beating prospective offensive play-callers off with a stick. Not sticking Shedeur with another season of Pencil Pat pushing the buttons.

Yet when USA Today asked Coach Prime Monday if Shurmur, who put Teddy Bridgewater on a stretcher and Drew Lock in purgatory, would return as CU’s offensive coordinator, this was Sanders’ reply:

“Yeah,” Coach Prime said, “most likely.”

Lordy, the man’s interviews for the “Coach Prime” TV show that debuts later this week must be pure gold. Because his offenses are anything but.

Sanders took the keys from Sean Lewis and handed them to Shurmur around Halloween. CU hasn’t won a game since.

Only three Pac-12 teams scored fewer points than the Buffs did — 20.25 per game — after Nov. 1. And Stanford, Arizona State and UCLA still averaged 2.6 league wins, or more than twice what CU wound up with once the dust settled.

Prime can do better. Can’t he?

I mean, yeah, half of a crummy offensive line has to be replaced on the fly. But the core pieces at the skill positions, if healthy, look sterling.

Shedeur Sanders was a one-man offense last year. In 11 games, he broke CU’s single-season passing yardage standard. He was a touchdown toss away from tying the single-season mark there, too. He’s got an NFL arm with NFL shoulders, connected to an NFL head.

Surely, there’s another Sean Lewis type out there — a young, aggressive play-caller who’s just itching for a chance to help No. 2 smash records to his heart’s content. Someone begging for a chance to work with one of the top returning signal-callers in the country. For a chance to work with Hunter, college football’s most gifted superfreak.

Good offensive coordinators should be banging down athletic director Rick George’s door right now. If they aren’t, is it because they know something we don’t?

The Prime Plan has always been aimed at Year 2. New conference. New hope. The revamped Big 12 is imminently winnable, a hoops league stuffed with football middleweights. A perfect final ride for The Chosen Ones — Shedeur, Shilo and Travis — together in Buffs gold. A chance to push every chip to the middle of the table.

So why is Papa Sanders recycling this one?

The cynic would say No. 2 is No. 1 when it comes to the CU offense, and retaining Shurmur offers the added bonus, in theory, of making Deion’s son even more attractive for NFL scouts in advance of the ’25 draft.

Shurmur brings a long NFL track record to the table, even if that record has more wild twists than Wolf Creek Pass. Perhaps Pops wants Pencil Pat teaching Shedeur a pro-style offense using pro-style terms at a pro-style clip.

Although wouldn’t Byron Leftwich bring those same NFL bona fides, without all that Broncos baggage?

Whatever Shedeur wants, Shedeur gets. If a conflict emerges between one of Sanders’ children and a coach, which one do you think Coach Prime is most likely to side with, consequences be damned?

“Pat and I communicate really well,” the elder Sanders said following a season-ending loss at Utah. “Pat and Sean communicated really well. Pat and Shedeur communicate really well. So I think he did a great job. I really did.”

Twenty points per game? 0-4? Great?

Ask yourself this: Which coach would you rather have out on the recruiting trail preaching the gospel of Prime? Lewis, a 37-year-old who kept a PlayStation 4 in his office at Kent State for players to come in and use? Or Shurmur, who turns 59 next April? And who said two years ago, in front of a pack of NFL reporters, “I’m not a very social-media savvy guy.”

Sanders is on his phone selling everything to everyone, all the time. Shurmur thinks TikTok is the sound a watch makes after you wind it. What could possibly go wrong?

Yes, the staff is in flux, a remake-in-progress. Yes, a lot figures to change over the next eight or nine months. But the Buffs already lost a ’24 QB commitment with Lewis’ departure. Former defensive ends coach Nick Williams, one of CU’s most respected recruiters, just left the Buffs for the same job at Syracuse. Tim Brewster, another bag man, took his shouting to Charlotte.

And have you looked at CU’s fight card for next September?

Best take care of business against North Dakota State in that home opener, kids. Because then it’s at Nebraska on Sept. 7, followed by a visit to CSU on Sept. 14. Even with a 12-team College Football Playoff field, those non-conference losses can come back to bite you on the backside. Unless you’re Nick Saban.

Asked Monday about the CFP next December, Sanders told 247Sports.com that “we plan on being in that situation.”

With Pencil Pat calling the plays?

Best plan for 6-6. Most likely.

A lawsuit filed in the Colorado District Court by one Denver Public Schools father alleging his two children have been denied their First Amendment rights to have a “straight pride” flag in school may stand a chance in court.  

“This is not a groundbreaking lawsuit. This is just a controversial lawsuit,” said David Lane, a civil rights attorney based in Denver.  

CBS News Colorado has been following this lawsuit closely, which was first filed back on Nov. 10 by two Washington D.C. lawyers, Mike Yoder and ChadLaVeglia. The lawsuit argues Nathan Feldman, a father of two children attending the K-8 Slavens School in Denver, was denied being able to put up a cisgendered, heterosexual flag at school. He says a “straight pride” flag represents his children’s beliefs and should be allowed on campus in the same way LGBTQ+ flags are allowed.

Parent sues Denver Public Schools for his children’s right to have “straight pride flags” displayed in school

A spokesperson for LGBTQ Colorado sent the following statement in response to the lawsuit: 

A Pride flag is not meant to be exclusive – it is designed to be inclusive. It is meant to draw attention and humanity to people who historically have been considered “illegal”, ostracized, excluded, and for too long quiet victims of discrimination and violence. 

A Straight Pride Flag speaks “us vs them” wherein a Pride flag lifts up an “all of us” dynamic that recognizes the too often quiet and quieted LGBTQ+ community. 

This lawsuit has riled up a lot of discussion and concern on social media, especially among the Slavens School community. Slavens’ parents created a change.org petition supporting the school’s teachers and inclusivity and calling for Feldman to stop the lawsuit.  

“People are under the mistaken belief that offensive speech or hate speech is not protected speech. The U.S. Supreme Court has said the government doesn’t get to choose and decide what is offensive, what is not offensive,” said Lane. “If they’re going to allow any political speech, they’re going to have to allow all political speech of a related nature.” 

Lane states DPS, a government-funded school, is required to allow this expression of speech.

“As much as I may disagree politically with his position. I think First Amendment case law mandates that this school either eliminate LGBTQ flags and all flags of that nature or they allow him to fly whatever flag he wants,” said Lane. “He is absolutely correct that this is a First Amendment violation. 

A district policy established back in January 2020,  supports the right of employees to post “rainbow flags or other signs of support for LGBTQIA+ students or staff.” 

Lane, however, argues this policy cannot prohibit other forms of expression under the First Amendment.  

“A smart school district will either say, no we’re not advertising political beliefs regarding sexual orientation in our schools,” said Lane. “Or what’s going to happen here is that if Denver loses this lawsuit, which they will, taxpayers are going to be on the hook for paying attorney’s fees to these D.C. lawyers who filed the suit.” 

As of today, a spokesperson for Denver Public Schools says they still have not been served with the lawsuit.  

Neither Feldman nor his attorneys have responded to multiple requests for comment.  

There once were 20 multi-colored musical rocking chairs that sat comfortably in the plaza just east of the Denver Art Museum’s entrance.

Originally introduced in 2017, the piece known as “La Musidora” was so popular that the museum decided to bring them back three more times.

A Denverite reader noticed this year that they are gone and asked us to find out where they went. The short answer: they’ve been recycled.

“Museum visitors and our community actively enjoyed La Musidora, but the chairs and the materials they were made with could not sustain one more year of use and exposure to the elements,” said DAM spokesperson Andy Sinclair.

The Mexico City-based designers Esrawe + Cadena envisioned that the woven plastic musical rocking chairs to be an ephemeral, one-time piece to be used during the summer.

However, as a result of positive feedback following the 2017 season, the chairs were seated by the DAM for three additional summers in 2018, 2019 and then again in 2022 until they were “de-installed, disassembled and recycled” at the end of last year’s season.

Over the years, the Mexico City-based design duo has kept a close working relationship with the DAM.

DAM commissioned Héctor Esrawe and Ignacio Cadena to design the colorful, interactive 90-foot long installation on June 30, 2017. Inspired by urban furniture in the city of Mérida, Yucatán, the designers collaborated with weavers in Mexico City to create chairs made to be a metaphor for a “marimba” or xylophone that produced sound individually or in collaboration with strangers as a way to “activate a collective consciousness.”

Years later, the pair returned to help design layouts for interactive spaces in the other parts of the museum.

Fans of their work can still experience their designs in the museum’s Creative Hub, designed top-to-bottom by the duo. Located on the first level of the Martin Building, the more than 5,000 square foot space is for sparking a visitor’s imagination through a variety of hands-on artmaking exercises and guided prompts.

And while we’re on the topic of beautiful chairs…

Visitors can look forward to the opening of “Have a Seat: Mexican Chair Design Today,” an interactive exhibition featuring historical works and contemporary seats designed by 22 Mexican artists represented in the museum’s permanent collection. Opening Feb. 18, 2024, people will be able to design their own digital chair using software developed for the exhibition.

And for the serious furniture enthusiasts who can’t wait any longer, it’s worth checking out “By Design: Stories and Ideas Behind Objects,” which features chairs from global designers including a sprawling Yumi Chair made of bent white ash and steel by Denver-local artist and designer Laura Kishimoto.