Court denies Christensen's eligibility bid
A defensive lineman raised in a Sierra Leone orphanage is fighting the NCAA for one more season, and the Buffs open at Georgia Tech looking for payback.
A defensive lineman's fight for one more season
Ezra Christensen's path to Boulder is not a normal one: he grew up in an orphanage in Sierra Leone, was adopted at 16 with no knowledge of American football or the NCAA rulebook, then lost his senior year of high school to the pandemic. He started his college career at San Diego Mesa, a junior college, in 2022, before two seasons at Fresno State and a 2025 stop at New Mexico State where he made first-team All-CUSA with 11 tackles for loss and six sacks, per SI.com's reporting. He arrived at Colorado this offseason still needing the NCAA to grant him a fifth year to play it.
The NCAA canceled his waiver, and Christensen took it to court. On July 22, per Pete Nakos of On3, Christensen's ex parte TRO was denied, which let the NCAA respond, with a hearing set on his full preliminary injunction request. That injunction has since been denied too, according to Yahoo Sports and Roundtable's reporting, which leaves him ineligible for the fall as things stand — even with attorney Darren Heitner, who has beaten the NCAA in court before, still pushing his case. It is a separate suit from the higher-profile Colorado ruling that has already unlocked fifth years for players like Florida's Denzel Aberdeen and USF's Traevon Mitchell this summer, but it is playing out in the same eligibility fight roiling the sport, and for now Christensen is on the outside of it.
Last season closed on a four-game slide
Colorado's 2025 season ran out of road in the same way it started to slip in October — Utah routed the Buffs 53-7, Arizona followed with a 52-17 win in Boulder, and West Virginia beat them 29-22 on the road. Arizona State piled on 42-17 at Folsom Field before the season closed on November 29 with a 24-14 loss at Kansas State, a defeat that finished the year on a four-game skid and put a hard stop on what had been a promising start under Deion Sanders.
None of that is current form — it's last season, and it belongs here only because it is the last time this program actually played a game. What it does explain is why the roster looks different: Christensen is one of several new faces brought in over the winter to try to fix what broke down in November, and the Georgia Tech opener will be the first real test of whether it worked.
Julian Lewis has the job, and now a veteran behind him
The quarterback race that some expected to be a fall storyline never really was one. Julian Lewis is locked in as CU's starter for the opener, according to SI.com's reporting out of fall camp, after a true freshman season last year in which he completed 52 of 94 passes for 589 yards, four touchdowns and zero interceptions across four appearances — including a 299-yard first start that is the second-most by a true freshman in program history, behind only Koy Detmer's 1992 outing.
Behind him is a name with actual starts on his resume: Colorado added former Utah quarterback Isaac Wilson through the transfer portal this offseason, per SI.com, giving Sanders a backup who isn't learning the position on the fly if Lewis needs a series off. It's the kind of low-drama quarterback room a fourth-year coach wants heading into a season where Sanders, who sits at 16-21 at Colorado, needs the win column to start moving the right way again.
A rematch in Atlanta, and Sanders isn't feeling sentimental about it
This is the return leg of a series that only started last season, when Georgia Tech beat Colorado 27-20 at Folsom Field in the first-ever meeting between the two schools. Sanders has made clear he isn't treating the trip back as a reunion — he told reporters he has "no nostalgia" for the trip to Atlanta, per Yahoo Sports, and in a fall camp presser warned his own coaching staff not to tolerate mediocrity, saying to get anyone who does out of the building. Georgia Tech is no pushover host: Brent Key is 23-16 in his third season running the program, per Ramblin' Wreck's team site, though the Yellow Jackets themselves are coming off a last-season finish that ended 21-25 at BYU.
The line opened with Georgia Tech favored by 6.5, making Colorado an underdog for Thursday night at Georgia Tech, with the total set at 50.5. Colorado will also be watching its receiver room: Covers' injury table lists both D. Scudero (foot) and K. Perry (elbow) as questionable, and it remains to be seen whether either is full-go by kickoff. A questionable tag is a doubt, not a ruling-out, but it's one more variable in a game Sanders clearly wants back.