Colorado Upsets Houston 42-32, Players Shine for Coach Prime.
Published November 14, 2026 at 2:00 AM EST
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Colorado just recorded the biggest win of Deion Sanders' tenure. (Dustin Bradford/Getty)
BOULDER, COLORADO — Deion Sanders needed this one. His Colorado Buffaloes fell behind 20–7 on Friday night, then scored 28 unanswered points on their way to a 42–32 upset of No. 14 Houston at Folsom Field. It was Colorado’s first win over an AP top-15 opponent since beating No. 3 Oklahoma in 2007. And it was the best game Coach Prime has coached to date.
With 42 seconds left, Colorado students began rushing the field. The clock was still running on a game the Buffaloes had once looked in danger of letting get away. They came in 3–6, a loss away from having to give up on reaching six wins. They walked out 4–6 with their bowl hopes still alive and their coach’s strongest answer yet to questions about his future.
The first sign of what Colorado could do came with the Buffaloes down 10–0 and backed up at their own 6. Quarterback Isaac Wilson ran for two third-down conversions on a 94-yard drive, and Richard Young finished it with a 38-yard touchdown. Houston stretched the lead to 20–7, but Colorado didn’t ask Wilson to throw it back into the game. The Buffaloes stuck with the run. Brennan Marion’s Go-Go offense finally got going. Houston’s defensive coordinator Austin Armstrong couldn’t find a way to stop it.
DeKalon Taylor broke loose for a 67-yard touchdown. The defense forced a three-and-out, and JaQuail Smith ran 32 yards for the score that put Colorado ahead 21–20 at halftime. Then Wilson hit Joseph Williams for a 53-yard touchdown, Kaneal Sweetwyne scored on a 14-yard run and the Buffaloes shut Houston out in the third quarter. When the Cougars cut the lead to nine in the fourth, Young punched it in from two yards out.
Whatever people outside that locker room think of Deion Sanders, these players still believe in him and in the program. You could see it when players were carried off the field and the guys who replaced them stepped in and made plays. There was no quit in them. You could see the determination in Sanders’ eyes from the moment he led them out of the tunnel. And on the sideline, he looked like an actual football coach. His team was down 13 to a ranked opponent, and he kept them playing the game they came to play.
After the 20–10 loss at Arizona State, Sanders was asked about his job security. He said he wasn’t thinking about it and took responsibility for the team’s struggles. Friday was a must-have for Colorado’s season and for Sanders. It may just have saved his job. That’s no guarantee about what the school will do, but the Buffaloes gave their coach something more persuasive than anything he could say at a news conference. They showed they could take a punch from a ranked team and come back to beat it.
The upset of No. 17 TCU in 2023 will always be the game that introduced Coach Prime to Colorado. Shedeur Sanders threw for 510 yards that afternoon. Houston was a different test. Colorado had to rally from 13 down, take the lead, then go back to work when the Cougars made it close again. The backs, the quarterback and the defense all had a hand in it. That’s why I’d put Houston first.
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