Keeler: Do you believe? North Dakota State sure does. Here’s how Deion Sanders, CU Buffs can avoid shocking upset in Boulder

BOULDER — Football questions only today, kids. Since Deion Sanders doesn’t want mine, I chucked one at Dave Baldwin instead.

“I don’t think they’ll feel it’s their Super Bowl,” Baldwin, the former San Jose State coach, CSU and UNC offensive coordinator, said of North Dakota State, which visits CU on Thursday night to kick off the 2024 slate at Folsom Field.

“I really believe, in their hearts and minds, they feel they belong there and they can beat them.”

Lovely. Any advice for Coach Prime when it comes to rustling a herd of upset-minded Bison on the Front Range?

“It’s not going to be, ‘Oh, it’s a lifetime dream’ for them,” the Colorado native continued. “They believe they can win there. That’s the attitude they brought into our place.”

Ah, yes. Their place. Baldwin was calling plays at old Hughes Stadium for Jim McElwain and the Rams in September 2012.

Now this was a Rams roster, mind you, with at least six future NFL players, including Broncos fan fave and Super Bowl 50 champ Shaq Barrett; wideout Crockett Gillmore; and quarterback Garrett Grayson. As our best pal Steve Addazio used to say, the Rammies had some dudes.

Naturally, CSU scored on the third play of the game, a 69-yard touchdown toss from Grayson to Gillmore. Ex-Rams wideout Joe Hansley told me he remembered, after the celebration, thinking this was going to be easy. Almost too easy.

“Gillmore scored,” the Highlands Ranch product recalled, “and we sat down on the bench looking at each other and said, ‘We’re going to kick the (expletive) out of this team.’”

Yeah, turns out, not so much. The Bison scored 22 straight after that, shutting out CSU the rest of the way to steal a 15-point win.

“They started calling our (offensive) plays on the field,” Hansley said with a laugh. “(We) were more or less just embarrassed.”

Baldwin even remembered some “film exchange” shenanigans between McElwain and then-Bison coach Craig Bohl, who continued to torment the Rams with Wyoming until his retirement this past December.

“The Bison are not going to finesse you,” Baldwin said. “They’re going to smack you in the face and they’re going to hit you on defense … they’re going to play their style of defense, which was Tampa-2 at the time.

“And they’re going to play it over and over and over and play to every formation they can. And they’re going to be as physical for a small school as you’ve ever seen. They won’t back down with their physicality.”

Nothing travels like defense and the run game, and since 2010, NDSU is 6-1 against Power 4 teams, all on the road. The Bison led 28-24 two Septembers ago against Arizona in Tucson until Wildcats QB Jayden de Laura found Jacob Cowing with a 22-yard touchdown pass to escape with a 31-28 victory.

The Bison have a new coach in Tim Polasek, but the same shock-the-world mojo. NDSU doesn’t want you to see the herd coming until you’re between the hashmarks.

“They play that old-school brand of football, that they’re going to take it to the end (of the game),” Baldwin stressed. “They’re going to tackle well. They’re going to block really well. They’re not big-time talkers. They come to play football.

“They’re going to pound and hit you and play with such physicality. They feel they can slow down the tempo. And their thing is, they love getting into the fourth quarter with a chance.”

Meanwhile, of the 14 questions posed to Sanders at the Champions Center on Saturday, only four pertained to the Bison. And Coach Prime dismissed the idea of Week 1 being a “trap” game.

“I think who we are encourages (NDSU),” Sanders said of the Bison. “Everybody wants to beat us, and we want to beat everybody. So that encourages them tremendously. They know they’re on national television. They know the world is watching. I think we had four, five — maybe five scouts out there today, scouts out there every day watching practices. They see that kind of stuff. So regardless of who you place on the schedule. These guys want it.”

On this, Baldwin and Hansley agreed — they’re not sure if these Bison can run with the Buffs in Ralphie’s backyard. Even if two-way star Travis Hunter isn’t 100%, the future NFL draft pick is still 30-40% better than anybody in green and gold. Vandy transfer Will Sheppard is 6-foot-3 with high 4.4-ish wheels and the catch radius of a glider. LaJohntay Wester, formerly of FAU, is a Jimmy Horn Jr. clone.

“I know who they are,” Baldwin, who retired from coaching a few years ago, said of NDSU. “I don’t know who the heck CU is with all the changes they’ve made.

“Last year, talk was cheap and the actions on the field (meant more). (The Buffs) weren’t a very physical football team. Everybody says (CU is) much better on the offensive line. If that’s the case, with that quarterback (Shedeur Sanders) and those wide receivers, it could be very dynamic for them.”

Assuming he’s got time, mind you. As Baldwin and Hansley learned the hard way, when it comes to the Bison and big stages, assume at your peril.

Originally Published: August 24, 2024 at 7:52 p.m.