2 weeks Ago
Colorado center Cash Cleveland put his name into the transfer portal on Thursday.Cleveland was a walk-on with the Buffaloes, but finished the 2024 campaign as the starting center and earned On3Sports true freshman All-American honors.Related ArticlesDespite pushback from alums, CU hopes Buff Nation comes together in honoring Shedeur Sanders, Travis HunterFormer CU Buffs great, NFL tight end Don Hasselbeck dies of a heart attack at age 70CU football notes: Transfer portal window opens with a few Buffs on the moveMixing veterans and newcomers, CU Buffs defense striving for consistency as spring practice nears endQuarterback competition continues as CU Buffs near end of spring practicesRivals.
com reported Thursday that Cleveland is already drawing interest from multiple Power Four conference schools.Cleveland played at IMG Academy in Florida with CU star tackle Jordan Seaton, and wound up joining Seaton in the Buffs’ lineup.During the 2024 season, Cleveland didn’t play in any of the Buffs’ first six games.
When starting center Hank Zilinskas had some snap issues in a Week 7 game at Arizona, Cleveland came off the bench for the last 19 snaps.Two games later, snap issues resurfaced for Zilinskas and Cleveland relieved him in the first quarter. Cleveland wound up starting the last four games, while Zilinskas saw just three more snaps in a CU uniform.
Zilinskas transferred to Rutgers in January. With Cleveland now on the move, the Buffs will once again have a new center this season.Also on Thursday, tight end Sam Hart, who left the team earlier this spring, officially went into the transfer portal.
He transferred to CU from Ohio State last summer.Thoughts on new turfSaturday’s Black & Gold scrimmage will be the first chance for fans to see the new-look Colorado football team. It will also be the last chance for fans to see the Buffaloes play on natural grass at Folsom Field.
BuffZone reported last month that CU will replace the grass surface with artificial turf this summer and on Thursday head coach Deion Sanders gave his thoughts on the switch.“We plan on making it to the (College Football Playoff), and we don’t want to play on the frozen tundra,” Sanders said. “The heating system (under the field) that once was available, I don’t know if that was still available, because we do so much in the off season.
This university is a magnet for events, so when you have events and you’re putting a lot of wear and tear on grass, that’s kind of tough to bounce back from.”Sanders added that the artificial surface could be better for night games.“When you have evening games, there’s a dew that gets on the field and it gets pretty slippery, and for both teams, not just our team,” he said.
“But we should have some type of advantage for that. So going to turf just assures us a better footing, a better surface, and it takes a lot of pressure off our wonderful staff that’s doing the grounds. Now they can focus more on the other practice fields to make sure they’re straight all year round for us.
”NotableAs of Thursday afternoon, CU had sold roughly 15,100 tickets to Saturday’s spring game, including more than 5,000 sold since Monday. ..
. Earlier this month, the NCAA denied a request by CU and Syracuse head coach Fran Brown to play a joint spring game. Sanders is hoping the NCAA rules will change so teams can do joint spring games next year.
“I think it hurt the ticket sales when they said we weren’t going to get that scrimmage, I really do,” he said. “I wish we would have, but hopefully we get it a year from now when somebody else thinks of it, besides me and coach Fran Brown and let them do it first.” .
.. Regarding the five-year, $54 million contract extension he signed earlier this month, Sanders said, “I told you all I wasn’t going nowhere.
I don’t know why y’all didn’t believe me. I love it here. I adore it here.
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