The Colorado Buffaloes improved to 7-2 on Saturday with their 41-27 win at Texas Tech. However, in the days leading up to kickoff at Jones AT&T Stadium, the Buffs found themselves in the middle of an unwanted T-shirt dispute.
Red Raider Outfitter, an alumni-owned apparel store that creates custom game day T-shirts, planned a "Celebrate America" theme for the Week 11 battle.
According to store owner Stephen Spiegelberg, the University of Colorado objected to licensing a product with an American flag on it in conjunction with either teams' logo. He added that the store later declined an opportunity to remove the flag from the proposed design.
Colorado's athletic director Rick George refuted the claim on Thursday, writing on X, "All I will say is that this is not accurate and we have many things with the American flag. Let's do better with our homework. Go Buffs. Let's get a W this weekend."
Speaking to media after Saturday's win, Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders addressed the accusations, which he described as a "disturbing" situation.
"It's like, CU don't like the flag or something? C'mon bruh, that's sick at this point," Sanders told reporters. "Y'all just fishing for content at this point. So, that was very disturbing. What I feel bad for, it's genuine people that (are) out there that read the media that don't know us, you know, and they believe the type of lies ... the narrative."
He continued, "It's just weird and I just feel bad for those people who don't know us. They judging us based off of somebody's hate toward dad (head coach Deion Sanders)."
A spokesperson for the University of Colorado also issued a statement to Lubbock's KCBD 11 News: "We get requests to use our marks and often decline for any number of reasons. In this case, the decision was unrelated to the 'Celebrate America' theme."
On the field, the 22-year-old Sanders finished the Week 11 victory with 291 aerial yards and four total touchdowns (one rushing) on 30-of-43 passing.
He's up to 24 touchdowns against six interceptions in nine games this season as the Buffaloes look to be in control of their destiny with three regular season games remaining before the playoffs.
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