FORT WORTH, Texas — Even the flies have started to notice Colorado’s rough start to the season.

As Deion Sanders sat down to address the Buffaloes’ 35-21 defeat at TCU — a game in which they led 14-0 late in the first half — he kept having to swat away a few flies as he struggled to find reasoning for why his latest team just can’t seem to find a way to close games.

“Where are (these) flies coming from?” Sanders jokingly asked. “Are we that stinky that flies are flying around like buzzards with helmets on? Jesus.”

Maybe those flies were attracted to the stench of another disappointing loss emanating from the CU locker room just a few feet away, where a frustrated group of players had to grapple with the reality of a familiar feeling amidst their 2-4 start to the season overall that features a 0-3 record in Big 12 games.

“It’s the same stuff every week,” sophomore safety Tawfiq Byard said. “(As) leaders, we gotta take it upon ourselves to do better in practice. It’s the same old stuff, we just gotta lock in on the little stuff.”

That was a common theme from Byard, a South Florida transfer who has risen into the de facto spokesperson of the defense through its early-season struggles. There’s a clear level of frustration in the Buffs’ locker room right now and not just because they keep finding themselves in similar situations at the end of close games. It’s also because every time they appear to have found a breakthrough on either side of the ball, old habits kick in or a self-inflicted wound costs them in a big spot.

“The whole game, we’re in it. We’re competing, we’re going back and forth,” Byard said. “Yeah, they might score, but we get back and we get a touchdown. We never felt like they were doing too much that we couldn’t handle. It’s just us. We gotta take it upon ourselves to make plays when it matters.”

The message on how that changes has remained the same for weeks.

“We gotta take it upon ourselves to do more, and it starts in practice. I know we keep saying it starts in practice, but it’s real,” Byard emphasized.

Coach Prime agreed with that sentiment, but there’s also something intangible that the 2025 CU team seems to be missing. 

“The mentality and the attitude,” Sanders said.

It’s not just the talent and level of execution from players like Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders that’s missing; it’s a killer instinct to finish games and deliver the knockout blow that the Buffs did many times last year on the way to a 9-win season.

“I don’t think you build that, I think that comes with the kid,” Coach Prime said. “You gotta have that somewhere inside of you, but that starts on the practice field because if you’re having success there, you’re gonna bring that over to the game and you’re gonna be successful there.”

Whether or not that killer instinct emerges at any point this season, Sanders and his staff will just have to wait and see. For now, they’re just counting on the leaders in the locker room to keep it together and prevent their teammates from becoming checked out, with hopes of competing for a Big 12 title all but over.

“That’s probably the most important thing going forward,” Byards said. “We’re 2-4. At this time, players start to think (about) other things, and as leaders, we gotta bring ‘em together. We gotta keep ‘em on the same mission.”