Joel Klatt drops his predictions for most-hyped Colorado vs Nebraska Week 2 game

Deion Sanders and his Colorado Buffaloes program face a tough test in the second week of the 2024 college football season. After their narrow victory over the North Dakota State Bisons in Week 1, the Buffaloes now face the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

This is going to be a highly anticipated clash between two programs that should be going better than they have been doing recently.

College football analyst Joel Klatt gave his prediction for the game on Thursday's edition of the Joel Klatt Show.

"What happens when Travis Hunter goes off? At time you just have to say the elite talent is going to win out. I like Colorado in an outright win 34-31 in an absolute classic."

According to Klatt, it will be Travis Hunter who will make the difference and deliver the win for Sanders and Colorado.

This is not surprising as Hunter is the strongest member of the Buffaloes team and the only player who is able to dominate their opponents.

During the opening week win over North Dakota, Hunter recorded 132 yards and scored three TDs. However, while he found the endzone on more occasions than his teammates, he did not record the most receiving yards in the game.

This honor belongs to Jimmy Horn Jr., who recorded 198 yards from seven receptions, which was the same number that Hunter had.

The quarterbacks of Colorado and Nebraska will make a difference

Another factor in this game will be the quarterbacks. It is likely that two of the most talked about players in College Football will meet in this game.

For the Buffaloes, Shedeur Sanders is one of the top prospects in the 2025 NFL Draft. He is the sole reason why the Buffaloes have had the minor successes during the reign of Deion Sanders (Shedeur's father).

During the North Dakota State game, Sanders went 26/34, threw for 445 yards, and scored four TDs in what was a narrow victory. However, as we saw last year, while Sanders can put up some very good numbers, if other parts don't work, the Buffaloes do not win.

For the Cornhuskers, they are likely to play freshman QB Dylan Raiola, who is seen as a future star in the making. During the Cornhuskers' 40-7 win over the UTEP Miners, Raiola went 19/27, threw for 238 yards and scored two touchdowns.

While this is a lot less than the yardage of Sanders, it is worth mentioning that Raiola did not play the entire game, and Nebraska used their run game a lot more than Colorado did. The Cornhuskers rushed for 223 yards from 47 attempts to the Buffaloes' 59 yards from 23 attempts.

All of these differences led to a meeting between the two teams that could go either way. As Joel Klatt said, it will take one player to have one good performance on a play and that could be the difference between victory or defeat.