Colorado was never going to lose this game. Vegas had the Buffaloes as roughly a 34.5-point favorite over Weber State, and win-probability models had them as near locks before kickoff. So if you're looking at the 52-21 final and trying to draw some grand conclusion about Colorado being "back," don't bother. Deion Sanders didn't even try to sell it that way. Afterward he said, "I am ecstatic about the win, but my expectations far exceed our productivity of the day."
The real story is Julian Lewis, and it's fair to call this his actual arrival as CU's guy.
Lewis finished 17-of-23 for 366 yards and four touchdown passes, added a rushing score, and did most of his damage before halftime. He's a redshirt freshman who barely played most of last season behind a transfer starter, only getting his shot late in the year. This was the first time he's had a full offense built around him from Week 1, and it showed. Colorado's own program noted the offense produced 398 passing yards and 180 rushing yards in the same game, something it hadn't managed together in over a decade. That's not garden-variety FCS stat-padding. It's an offense that can hurt you two different ways, something this Colorado team hasn't been able to claim with a straight face in the Sanders era.
The run game matters here too, maybe more than people will give it credit for. Micah Welch broke a 55-yard touchdown run and finished with a team-high 106 yards on the ground. It was reportedly the first 100-yard rushing performance for a Colorado back since the miserable 2022 season. If you've watched this program stumble through three years of one-dimensional, pass-or-bust football, a running back actually breaking one open is just as encouraging as anything Lewis did through the air.
There were nice secondary notes too. True freshman kicker Elliot Arnold hit a 52-yard field goal, the longest by a CU kicker in five years according to the program, and backup quarterback Kaneal Sweetwyne got real second-half snaps and scored on a scramble, worth filing away for later in the season.
None of this means Weber State just rolled over. Nate Dahle threw for 244 yards and three touchdowns for the Wildcats, who kept it within one score for stretches of the first quarter before Colorado's talent gap took over in the first half. Give them credit for not being a pushover, even if the final margin says otherwise.
My take: none of this tells you much about who Colorado actually is in a real football game. That test comes next week at Northwestern, a Power Four opponent, and again once Big 12 play starts. But if you're looking for a reason to believe this offense is different from the versions that flopped in years past, Lewis's day and Welch's breakout are exactly the kind of evidence you'd want. Beating an FCS team by 31 doesn't move the needle. A young quarterback looking like a real problem for opposing defenses does.
