“You can’t tell the players without a program.’’ – Old banality

In Boulder these days you wouldn’t know the Buffaloes by their numbers even with a media guide or famed Colorado guide Kit Carson.

It is Spring Practice Time for Coach Prime Time.

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Deion Sanders has come to Colorado with the similar special spectacle of P.T. Barnum (for whom a subdivision in West Denver is named), “Buffalo Bill’’ Cody, who is buried on Lookout Mountain, and Molly Brown, who was unsinkable.

Bring out the calliope!

Sanders didn’t wear a coach’s cap and football cleats. He was styling in CU’s indoor facility in a black cowboy hat and cowboy boots.

And he told the players that the CU practice jerseys wouldn’t feature numbers. The Buffs must “earn them.’’

His own number as an NFL and MLB player was “21.’’

Maybe that number will be given to running back Deion Smith, who rushed 24 times for 111 yards and a touchdown against Arizona State last season.

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Perhaps Sanders figured out that the Buffs have listed 112 players on the spring practice roster this week and they would run out of numbers. The coach did say he will decide who wears “No. 1’’, but not to signify how many victories – uh, victory – that CU finished with a season ago. Nobody, he declared, will wear “0’’ because it means “nothing’’.

These are the new bold-faced Buffaloes, not to be confused with the old Buffalosers who had a miserable 74-134 record from 2006-2022 and only two winning seasons (one during the pandemic at 4-2) under eight head coaches (including three brief interim coaches).

In 1890-93 Colorado won only six games, but didn’t have a coach. During the Dan Hawkins Error the Buffs were 21-40.

All Sanders has to do is compile a 22-2-1 record over two seasons, go to consecutive Orange Bowls and capture a national championship to match Bill McCartney.

Six victories in a season would be a major accomplishment for the program. It might help CU that the first names of two players on the Buffs’ spring roster really are Victory and Champion.

Coach Prime will go into the Pac-12 with the Portal Pack-29.

The Buffaloes’ Transfer team has 29 players who entered the college football portal and came out the other side in Boulder. Yes, 29, a number that belongs on a banner because it led the entire NCAA nation. They came from everywhere but parts unknown. The current roster is fluid because it doesn’t include the incoming freshman who didn’t enroll at CU during the spring semester and those players who will drop off the squad or drop out of the school before summer workouts. The Buffs in the good old McCartney days attracted multi-star recruits from Texas, Louisiana and Colorado. Presently the team has players from 22 states and three foreign lands. The Buffs lost 21 seniors after last season, but 22 remaining players, enough to start on offense and defense, are from 14 cities and towns in Colorado.

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California is represented by 24 Buffaloes; Texas has provided Colorado 20 players, and eight played high school football in Florida. Those are three of the most fertile grounds for college players. Eight players followed the coach from Jackson State, and others previously played at Clemson, Arkansas, Arizona State, West Virginia, South Florida, Fresno State and, yes, give us Liberty.

After two quarterbacks of the past season transferred out, only sophomore Drew Carter, who played sparingly, returns and is joined by junior Shedeur Sanders (Jackson State) and freshmen Colton Allen (Valor Christian) and Ryan Staub (Stephenson Ranch, Calif.). In all probability Sanders will be the first son of a Buffs head coach to start at QB since Cody Hawkins. CU has two more quarterbacks committed for 2024.

Sanders The Elder knows 112 doesn’t go into 85 – the number of scholarship players who, by rule, can be with the team this season. Players will come and go.

The record crowd of about 40,000 at Folsom Field for the CU Black and Gold Game, which is the only college spring football intrasquad contest scheduled for April 22 on the main ESPN network, definitely will need a program for names and numbers.

Kickoff is at 1 p.m. Mountain Prime Time.