CFB Insider gives his take on whether Deion Sanders & Co. can build on their success after the Shedeur & Hunter's exits

Deion Sanders turned around the Colorado Buffaloes in his two seasons with the program. Most of this occurred in his second year, improving on their four-win 2023 season to end the year with nine wins.

This gave the Buffaloes a bowl game appearance for the first time in nearly 10 years, where they lost to the BYU Cougars.

A reason for this success was the usage of quarterbacks Shedeur Sanders (Deion's son) and Travis Hunter, who won the Heisman Trophy this season. But, both these players have declared for the 2025 NFL Draft and are likely to be top first-round picks.

Questions have now arisen about Colorado's performance next season. Can Deion Sanders keep this good form up without his star players? College football analyst JD PicKell believes that he can.

"I think they can, and the reason why I feel that way is because of who Deion Sanders is," he said, via On3. "We don't have any reason in a two year sample size to believe that he is not going to have a roster to compete for what they want to compete for." (1:18)

The Buffaloes have seen improvements under Coach Prime. But, while Shedeur and Hunter were key parts of this improvement, they were not the sole reason.

Sanders brought in many talented players through recruitment and the transfer portal, and he excelled in that. This ability does not go away when a top player leaves, and Sanders has been able to bring in good-quality replacements for the leaving players.

Julian Lewis will replace Shedeur Sanders as quarterback. Lewis is a four-star recruit from Georgia who threw for over 10,000 yards in high school.

With the help of Deion Sanders and his strong coaching system at Colorado, Lewis and many other players can develop into NFL-caliber players who can match or even be better than the ones they replaced.

Deion Sanders lays down his rules for teams to draft Shedeur Sanders

Focusing on Shedeur Sanders' future, Deion has reportedly laid down some rules on which teams can draft him. According to Sports Illustrated, the following types of teams are likely to be avoided:

"Teams that play in cold weather, teams that have a poor track record of developing young quarterbacks and teams that rarely compete in the playoffs."

One can think of numerous teams, some of which have possession of top picks in the NFL draft (and thus a higher chance of drafting Shedeur) who would be ruled out.

While it is not known if these rules are going to be followed, it is clear that Deion Sanders is going to have a strong (and very public) influence on where his son will play professionally.