Shedeur Sanders stepped out into the spotlight against TCU for his first game in a Colorado uniform on Saturday, but he made it clear he hasn’t forgotten his HBCU roots.
The former Jackson State quarterback lit up last season’s FBS runner-up for better than 500 yards and five touchdowns in his Power Five debut as CU dropped TCU.
“I was just a SWAC player like two weeks ago. I was just a SWAC player a few weeks ago,” Sanders told the media after the game. “That’s for y’all to talk about.”
Sanders was asked about the two-way performance of Travis Hunter who came to Colorado from Jackson State along with Deion Sanders, Shedeur and a host of other players and coaches.
“He’s been the same player since last year. It’s just crazy because everything we’ve done in the past, we did the same thing. It’s just magnified,” Shedeur Sanders told the media. “He played offense and defense last year – it’s the same.”
Reporters pushed Sanders to talk about what felt different about playing at the Power Five level. Sanders passed for 70 touchdowns and won a case-full of awards while at Jackson State, something he expected to do from the day he stepped foot on to a college football field.
“Yes, I came from an FCS school, SWAC school. To me, it’s no difference. Them hits still feel the same,” Sanders told the media in the postgame press conference.”
While many people expected the former four-star quarterback to take his time to adjust to the Power Five level, he expected to continue to play at a high level, no matter the competiton.
“It doesn’t feel like nothing to me. Because it’s the same recipe, same preparation and things we’re doing.”
Simply put, the rest of the world may have wondered if Shedeur Sanders was simply beating up on overmatched competition because he played at an HBCU. Saturday showed that against “higher-level” competition, Sanders was even better.