What goes up must come down.

The NFL draft isn’t an event that takes the words of Isaac Newton literally, but the general concept remains the same. For someone to rise up the boards, that means someone must fall.

It’s an inexact science as teams examine a number of traits, personalities and game tape to make a projection before selecting a player. Some will be right and others, not so much.

Players will inevitably fall down the board, but it’s not always a fault of their own.

The 2025 NFL Draft isn’t thought of as a top-heavy class with a clearly defined top-10 or 15 players. Instead, the class is characterized by its depth, meaning the drop-off between first and second-round picks isn’t as big as it typically is.

So, while these future NFL players won’t be ordering a Life Alert anytime soon, they could be waiting a little longer than previously expected. Here’s a look at the projected first-round picks that could fall down the draft board.

NFL draft predictions: Players who could fall

Shedeur Sanders, QB, Colorado

Sanders was previously thought of as the potential No. 1 pick. Now, there are questions about whether he even lands in the top 10. The pick range for the Colorado quarterback has never been larger, making him a clear candidate to tumble down the draft board.

Will Johnson, CB, Michigan

Injuries and a lack of participation in pre-draft workouts like the 40-yard dash cloud the draft future for Johnson. Perhaps he finds himself in the Derek Stingley Jr. mold of overcoming injuries and those concerns don’t come to fruition. Regardless, that won’t be the case for every team, even if he does have an argument as the best cornerback in the class, aside from Travis Hunter. With other players carrying less risk, Johnson’s history is a disadvantage on draft night.

Tetairoa McMillan, WR, Arizona

McMillan might headline a weak receiver class, but his lack of speed could doom him early. While some project the Arizona receiver to land inside the top 10, others have him waiting until the back half of the first round. With so many teams prioritizing speed over size at receiver, he may fall out of favor with better talent available at other positions.

Tyler Booker, OG, Alabama

Booker has seen himself rise into the late teens in some mock drafts, but the fact that he doesn’t play a premium position could ultimately be his undoing. The last batch of picks in the first round is prime territory for teams eyeing premium positions for the coveted fifth-year option. That’s where we can see some quarterbacks sneak into the first round. Given Booker’s position, he feels like a prime candidate to drop back into the second round.

James Pearce Jr., EDGE, Tennessee

A year ago, Pearce was commonly thought of as the crown jewel of the 2025 class. He’s since fallen out of favor in draft circles, with mocks pushing him into the latter half of the first round and others dropping him into the second. Time will tell where Pearce ends up, but it comes across as more prospect fatigue than a sudden loss of talent.

As a more slender pass-rusher, Pearce will likely need to bulk up to become an impact player. While teams overthink prospects at this stage, the soon-to-be former Tennessee Volunteer could make some noise if he lands with the right one. It might just come later than expected.

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NEW YORK — When the Golden State Valkyries were awarded a WNBA franchise on Oct. 3, 2023, the work began to try to correct the disadvantages that every other expansion team faces.

Not only with finding the right people to lead, but also the complex, arduous task of building a team once the framework of a front office is decided.

That task is now in the hands of Valkyries general manager Ohemaa Nyanin and head coach Natalie Nakase, who spent the previous three seasons with the Las Vegas Aces, helping them win two WNBA championships.

Even before Monday night’s WNBA draft, Nyanin clarified what kind of player they sought.

‘We aren’t looking for the face of our franchise just yet,’ Nyanin said last week. ‘We need to build our identity, and throughout the season, hopefully, the face of the franchise emerges. I want it to be an organic process. Who is going to earn it? I don’t want it to just be given to anybody.’

‘I genuinely believe that if you work really hard at (becoming the face of a franchise), then you don’t mismanage it once it’s been given to you.’

The future started Monday night at the 2025 WNBA draft when the Valkyries, the first expansion team to enter the league since the Atlanta Dream in 2008, selected Justė Jocytė from Lithuania at No. 5 overall with their first-ever pick. The 19-year-old Jocyte, at 6-foot, can defend multiple positions and is a combo guard, whose offensive game shows that she has range from beyond the arc. She no doubt will need to get tougher, however, especially against the physical inside players, once inside the paint.

Jocytė, who doesn’t turn 20 until Nov. 19, averaged 12.7 points, 2.7 assists and 1.8 steals per game for Lyon ASVEL of the Ligue Féminine de Basketball. She is expected to compete for her country in the FIBA Women’s EuroBasket 2025, so her availability is still a question mark.

‘The national team is always my priority,’ Jocytė told Basketnews. ‘If the WNBA told me I couldn’t go and I had to choose, I would definitely choose the national team. I know that there is a possibility to arrange when you can be released a few weeks in advance, and this is a negotiation with the clubs about the dates.’

The Valkyries added Maryland star Shyanne Sellers with their second-round pick (No. 17 overall).Sellers did it all during an impressive four-year collegiate career for the Terrapins, becoming the first player in program history to clear 1,500 points, 500 rebounds, and 500 assists.

With their third selection of the night, Golden State took Kaitlyn Chen with the fifth pick of the third roud (No. 30 overall). Chen teamed with No. 1 overall pick Paige Bueckers to lead the UConn Huskies to the 2025 national championship.

Very few professional teams have made the playoffs in their first season, but the Valkyries have some advantages, that few, especially in the WNBA, have. The team already has a state-of-the-art practice facility and was the first league team to sell 10,000 season tickets.

But even Nyanin said she didn’t know what Valkyries will look like once the season starts. In December’s expansion draft, Golden State selected 11 players, including guard Kate Martin from the Las Vegas Aces and former New York Liberty forward Kayla Thornton. Seven of those expansion draft players are international.

‘We’re taking our sweet time to define that because once you define it—coming from experience—it’s really hard to change it,’ Nyanin said.

Like every other WNBA team, the time to find that out will be very short as the Valkyries’ first regular-season game will be against the Los Angeles Sparks on May 16.

Paige Bueckers going No. 1 in the 2025 WNBA Draft was a forgone conclusion from the moment she announced she was leaving UConn. On Monday night, she officially became a Dallas Wing.

Bueckers, who wore her heart on her sleeve after being subbed out for the final time in the Huskies’ national championship win over South Carolina, was similarly emotional speaking to Holly Rowe after having her name called.

Also similar to her court-side kudos to the UConn staff, she was most emotional when she was talking about her teammates and all of the people who helped her get to this point, rather than making the moment about herself.

‘Just an overwhelming sense of gratitude,’ Bueckers told Rowe when she was asked what was on her mind after being picked first. ‘It’s super surreal just being here with other draft invitees. My teammates are here. My family’s here. Just super grateful. Been focusing on staying present. Staying where my feet are. And to be here right now I’m just extremely blessed.’

Paige Bueckers gets emotional about teammates in attendance

While Bueckers kept an even tone while talking about her own journey, her voice did waver when she talked about her UConn teammates being in attendance to see her go first overall.

‘They’ve changed my life, those’re my sisters,’ Bueckers said before taking a moment to collect herself. ‘Just extremely grateful for them. I think two teams or one team would be genius to add Kaitlyn Chen and Aubrey Griffin to their team so I think they should get drafted tonight. But just, I just love them so much and they’re gonna be my sisters for life.’

Finally, Bueckers signed off with a food confession, although not an unforgivable one for a Midwesterner who played basketball on the Atlantic coast.

‘Before I was asked about Tex Mex vs barbecue I was unfamiliar with the term Tex Mex so that’s my pick. But Dallas I’m so excited just a new city. A new start. A fresh start and so. I’m excited let’s get it.’

In the nearly three decades since Major League Baseball has turned April 15 into a de facto industry holiday, there have been years in which celebrating Jackie Robinson has felt downright paradoxical.

You could say 2025 qualifies.

The game is right to celebrate its most impactful participant, an American civil rights hero whose courage in breaking baseball’s color line at its highest level should always be taught even if his example and his message are subject, like Martin Luther King, to bad faith actors co-opting and twisting it beyond recognition.

Within baseball, it has been a complex dynamic. Noble gestures such as retiring his No. 42 throughout MLB and all players donning it each April 15 are juxtaposed against backsliding Black representation in the big league player population and inconsistent organizational commitments to front office diversity.

The events of the past month-plus, when MLB scrubbed references to “diversity” from its careers home page, and the Department of Defense deleted references to Robinson’s military service before restoring it under pressure, and Robinson’s Dodgers franchise uncritically visited the president who made all of the above possible, create an unsettling reality that resonates even more on Jackie Robinson Day.

We simply can’t count on our institutions to save us.

The voters of this country have opted for what they believe to be rugged individualism, so long as it doesn’t hit home too hard for them. The man they elected to lead them wants us to believe the proverbial playing field has long been leveled for everyone, even as his family’s legacy was built on virulent discrimination.

And even as his hand-picked choices for crucial leadership positions err in a manner that suggests fealty and cronyism and not qualifications drove their hiring, private entities have felt compelled to fall in line.

Yet this is where MLB can do better than Target, which loudly ditched DEI and is now paying the price for it, and other corporations who once touted diversity wins yet are deserting hiring practices that enhance the chances their company reflects the people it aims to serve.

In short: MLB needs to keep it pushing.

The league has come relatively far since 1987, when Dodgers GM Al Campanis found he couldn’t use his late friend Robinson as a human shield when he claimed Blacks lacked the “necessities” to lead a front office or manage a ballclub.

The question posed by Ted Koppel that led to Campanis’s downfall simply asked why there were no Black GMs, managers or owners in the game.

In the years since, Black managers Cito Gaston, Dave Roberts and Dusty Baker have won World Series championships, as have Latino skippers Alex Cora, Dave Martinez and Ozzie Guillen. Ken Williams constructed the White Sox team that, with Guillen, ended an 88-year championship drought.

Yet today’s landscape reveals just one Black GM, Dana Brown, and three managers – Roberts, the White Sox’s Will Venable and the Angels’ Ron Washington.

The future offers mixed signals. Black player participation peaked, according to various estimates sometime in the late 1970s and early ‘80s; Washington, now 72, might represent the last of that group of former players in the managerial ranks.

There are nine Black assistant GMs, along with five Latino AGMs and four of Middle Eastern, Indian American or Asian descent. Almost all are what one might consider “baseball lifers,” entering the industry at the ground level and working their way closer to the executive suite, even if some have specific concentrations in international scouting or finance, say.

And none were products of MLB’s Diversity Pipeline Program, which those obsessed with purging the “D-word” from society might find surprising.

That fact proves a couple of interesting points. One, that diverse execs in baseball not only got there on merit but almost certainly did, in fact, have to grind harder than their counterparts.

And two, that inclusion efforts take time.

It’s been a decade since MLB initiated the Diversity Pipeline Program, which came at a time when franchise obsession with Ivy League analytics robots was arguably at its peak and front offices took on a largely monochromatic sheen. The diversity program has produced more than 400 hires within organizations.

Even as front offices aim to outflank their rivals, upward mobility remains challenging. Yet it seems inevitable program grads will eventually crack the c-suite, even if nepotism and cronyism will always provide obstacles.

Nurturing Black prospects on the field is similarly challenging. The league operates nine youth academies in urban areas and touts its myriad baseball development programs. Yet the former feels like a Band-Aid in an era when the cost of entry to the sport only gets higher, while the latter groups together players who have already demonstrated proficiency in the game.

Still, they are important efforts, if only to gather dozens of kids who likely are the only Black players on their own teams back home and introduce them to peers going through similar experiences. Many of those bonds will likely last well into adulthood.

Meanwhile, relief could come in the Wild West of amateur ball. Name, Image and Likeness opportunities have changed the calculus for athletes aiming to continue their careers collegiately. Onerous NCAA scholarship limits often served to push away the athlete who could not afford cost of attendance at a baseball power if they received, say, a one-quarter share of a scholarship.

While MLB’s truncated 20-round draft and smaller minor league system might narrow the talent pool, NIL may very well keep the young athlete playing baseball – especially if it pays more to be the leadoff man than the second-string quarterback.

It is a complex ecosystem, all of it under fire from a grievance-addled culture that despite its occasional platitudes fails to recognize the Sisyphean efforts to get in – and stay in – the game in the decades since Robinson broke the game’s color barrier.

Scrubbing language from a web site might enable the legal department to sleep better at night, but that’s just part of the equation. It’s incumbent on MLB to cheerfully refuse compromising what it might call its “values,” to be a Harvard and not a Columbia, to put it in terms the modern franchise can appreciate.

Paying homage to Robinson is always the right thing. Heeding his words is even better, such as when he wrote to President Eisenhower in 1958 after Ike urged “patience” in the battle for civil rights:

“Seventeen million Negroes cannot do as you suggest and wait for the hearts of men to change. We want to enjoy now the rights that we feel we are entitled to as Americans. This we cannot do unless we pursue aggressively goals which all other Americans achieved over 150 years ago.”

It is clear certain hearts will never change. In 2027, MLB will mark the 80^th anniversary of Robinson boldly erasing much of its exclusionary shame. The celebration will resonate a little more if, in the interim, the industry does not further squander the gains made over decades of starts and stops.

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Jackie Robinson is the ultimate American hero in a class by himself of not only athletes, but of all Americans.

He was a four-sport athlete with high academic success and he served our country in WWII with great honor. This resonates with me because my grandfather Jefferson Vincent, who raised me, also served during that time—a time of segregation even in the military. In our household, Jackie was considered the standard of athleticism, service, dedication, courage and perseverance. 

He stood against the hate and prejudice of segregation in the Jim Crow era. Standing up and showing up each day, his resolve brought an end to the color line in Major League Baseball at a time when it was illegal for Black Americans to play professional ball.

It is said that we all drink of wells from which we have not dug. We all are drinking from Jackie’s well. It is said that we all stand on the shoulders of giants. Jackie was and still is that giant upon whose shoulders we stand. His legacy is immortal.

His efforts gave us the courage to lean into the Civil Rights Movement. He challenged what was normal with dignity and respect. We know what we can be by what we see. Jackie exemplified that. 

Robinson has not only inspired my participation in social justice and racial equality initiatives at the local, state and national levels, as I studied and learned more about Jackie and his corporate and business aptitude, he, John Wooten and Junior Bridgeman created paths I wanted to follow during and after my playing experience.

Most are unaware of Jackie’s post-baseball playing experience and the success he had in corporate America. Jackie owned Black banks and he supported under-resourced families for decades. His success off the field was parallel to what he demonstrated on the field.

My post-playing career is a parallel to Robinson’s, taking inspiration from his approach to civil rights, business and life. As an executive, my career has been aimed at eliminating bias, promoting trust and fairness, developing skills and providing opportunity for women and people of color. Like Jackie and Rachel Robinson, my wife Tommi and I, also chose to make a lifetime commitment to the community at large. 

Our contribution to society through our Love Thy Neighbor Community Development and Opportunity Corporation seeks to provide equitable access to education, leadership development, safe environments, and essential resources, empowering individuals and families to achieve their fullest potential. We also work globally to prevent domestic violence and sexual assault. These life-long efforts are inspired and influenced by men like Jackie Robinson. 

Jackie was a devoted Christian, dedicated husband, served in WWII, an extraordinary athlete, business executive, and one who stood for what is just and right. He was an iconic figure both on the field and in society.

For me, he is a beacon of light, hope, faith, and inspiration, exemplifying the definition of integrity and respect, providing a road map for living a meaningful life of impact.

NEW YORK — Let’s hope the WNBA, and its new fans, learned something from the debacle of last season.

Barring some shocking turn or a kidnapping by aliens, Paige Bueckers is going to be the first pick of Monday night’s WNBA draft. She is a transformational player, one who will help drive attendance and attention to the Dallas Wings and the league overall.

What Bueckers is not is a “rival” of Caitlin Clark. Or Angel Reese. Or any other player, for that matter. (Not yet, anyway.) Nor is Bueckers some shrinking violet who needs protecting or hand-holding. She’s a hooper, and should be treated as such.

So should have Clark, and much of the drama last season was created by people who thought Clark needed to be shielded from both the physicality of the W and the expectations that have always accompanied star players.

“Obviously Caitlin had an unbelievable impact on the court, and her adjustment was quick and very, very productive. You saw how Indiana got hot and how dangerous they were late in the year, and a lot of that was a credit to Caitlin’s quick adjustment,” Wings general manager Curt Miller said last week. “I think the other thing that we all took notice of around our league is something as simple as security for our players and how to navigate the increased viewership, the increased fandom and how our players deserve to be protected and amplified at the same time.

“It’s a players-first league. Our job all around the league is to create an incredible environment for these players.”

That’s teams having their own practice facilities and flying charter, yes. But it’s also giving the players the respect and credit they deserve.

Approaching its 30^th season, this is the golden era for the WNBA. It is finally seeing the interest and investment it has long deserved, and fans and sponsors alike are clamoring for more.

After 15 years with just 12 teams, the W begins an expansion boom with the addition of the Golden State Valkyries this season. Portland and Toronto begin play next year and there will be at least one more team, and likely several others, by 2028.

ABC will broadcast a record 13 games this season, CBS will air its first primetime game and ION will duplicate the Friday night doubleheaders that proved so successful for Unrivaled. A massive new media rights deal is coming next year.

And the popularity of the college game ensures the WNBA will keep growing. Last year, it was Clark and Reese arriving with hefty fan followings from their time at Iowa and LSU, respectively. This year, it’s Bueckers, who is fresh off UConn’s NCAA title run. Next year it’ll be Olivia Miles. Then JuJu Watkins and Hannah Hidalgo.

Are some players, like Clark and Reese, or A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart, more popular than others? Sure. Just as LeBron James, Steph Curry and Nikola Jokic have star billing in the NBA. But every player contributes to the success of a league, and anything that negates or ignores that does a disservice to everyone.

The WNBA acknowledged that too late last year. It cannot make the same mistake again this year, or it risks alienating fans and players alike.

Bueckers has a different game and a different personality than Clark. There is more than enough room for both in the WNBA, and no one needs to be knocking one player down — or worse — in an ill-informed attempt to lift another up.

There’s likely to be an adjustment period for Bueckers, as there is for pretty much any rookie in any league. But she, like Clark, is ready for the W. All of it.

Here’s hoping fans, and the league, are, too.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.

Coaching the Phoenix Suns does not equal job stability.

At least not under Suns owner Mat Ishbia who is about to have his fourth coach in as many seasons after taking controlling interest of the franchise in 2023.

He fired Monty Williams after the 2022-23 season. He fired Frank Vogel after 2023-24. And on Monday, he fired Mike Budenholzer after a disappointing 36-46 record in 2024-25.

Williams and Budenholzer won NBA Coach of the Year awards. Vogel and Budenholzer won NBA titles as head coaches.

But head coach of the Suns is one of just 30 coveted jobs in the NBA so the Suns will find a replacement. Don’t be surprised if they look for a more player friendly coach in this search.

Here’s a look at potential coaching candidates for the Suns job:

David Fizdale

Fizdale was a Suns assistant the past two seasons – one season for Vogel and one season for Budenholzer. He was a longtime assistant for Erik Spoelstra in Miami and gained respect from players, including LeBron James. He was the head coach for Memphis for one-plus seasons and head coach for New York for one-plus seasons, compiling  a 71-134 record.

Terry Stotts

Stotts, an assistant for Golden State, knows stars and knows offense – he coached Damian Lillard in Portland where Stotts regularly produced top-10 offenses. Stott was 402-318 in nine seasons, including three 50-win campaigns, with the Blazers and led them to the conference finals in 2019.

Willie Green

Green is New Orleans’ head coach, but the Pelicans just fired president of basketball operations David Griffin, and Green, who just finished his fourth season with New Orleans. He came to the Pelicans from Phoenix where he was an assistant for two seasons, including 2020-21 when the Suns went to the NBA Finals. Green, like Suns owner Mat Ishbia, is a Michigan native, and they have known each other for years. Devin Booker also has a good relationship with Green.

Johnnie Bryant

Bryant joined Cleveland this season as associate head coach and is considered one of the top young assistants in the league. He’s been an assistant with New York and Utah and has earned praise from Damian Lillard and Gordon Hayward.

Adrian Griffin

Griffin had a short run as head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks and was 30-13 when the Bucks fired him midway through the 2023-24 season. The former NBA player and longtime NBA assistant is expected to get another chance with an NBA team.

Darvin Ham

Ham lasted two seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, going to the conference finals in 2023 and losing in the first round last season. Ham, who spent several seasons as an assistant for Budenholzer in Atlanta and Milwaukee, returned to the Bucks this season as an assistant for Doc Rivers.

Ben Sullivan

Sullivan is an assistant coach for Houston and also spent time as an assistant with Budenholzer in Atlanta and Milwaukee. He has a long relationship with Rockets head coach Ime Udoka – the two worked together in San Antonio – and Sullivan was part of Udoka’s staff in Boston.

Royal Ivey

Ivey is also an assistant coach on Udoka’s Rockets staff, and the former NBA player was also an assistant with Oklahoma City, New York and Brooklyn. He’s also the head coach of South Sudan’s men’s basketball team at the 2024 Paris Olympics and has done strong work with the nation’s senior team.

Chris Quinn

Before this season, Quinn was promoted from Miami Heat assistant coach to Heat associate head coach. It’s a sign Quinn is ready for a head-coaching opportunity. He has been on the Heat’s staff since 2014, starting as a player development coach and working his way to the No. 2 spot next to head coach Erik Spoelstra.

17 college prospects will be in attendance at the 2025 NFL Draft, and on Monday, the league released a full list of which players are headed to Green Bay.

The attendee list includes each one of the top six players that come off of the board in the latest 2025 NFL mock draft from USA TODAY Sports’ Nate Davis – a group that includes Miami (FL) quarterback Cam Ward and cornerback/wide receiver Travis Hunter.

The number of players on this year’s group of attendees – 17 – represents an increase from last year’s total, when 13 players went to Detroit for the 2024 NFL Draft. The 2023 NFL Draft in Kansas City also had 17 prospects in attendance.

Here’s the full list of players headed to Green Bay ahead of the first round next Thursday:

2025 NFL Draft attendees

• Tyler Booker, G, Alabama
• Jihaad Campbell, LB, Alabama
• Will Campbell, OT, LSU
• Abdul Carter, Edge, Penn State
• Jaxson Dart, QB, Mississippi
• Matthew Golden, WR, Texas
• Mason Graham, DT, Michigan
• Travis Hunter, CB/WR, Colorado
• Ashton Jeanty, RB, Boise State
• Will Johnson, CB, Michigan
• Tetairoa McMillan, WR, Arizona
• Jalen Milroe, QB, Alabama
• Josh Simmons, OT, Ohio State
• Malaki Starks, S, Georgia
• Shemar Stewart, Edge, Texas A&M
• Cameron Ward, QB, Miami (FL)
• Mykel Williams, Edge, Georgia

When is the 2025 NFL Draft?

The 2025 NFL draft is next week, during the final weekend of April. Fans can watch the draft on ESPN or NFL Network.

• Thursday, April 24: Round 1, 8 p.m. ET
• Friday, April 25: Rounds 2-3, 7 p.m. ET
• Saturday, April 26: Rounds 4-7, Noon ET

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The University of Colorado announced Monday that quarterback Shedeur Sanders and two-way star Travis Hunter are “officially untouchable” and will retire their football jersey numbers Saturday in a ceremony at Folsom Field.

That means jersey No. 2 for Sanders and No. 12 for Hunter will not be worn again by any Colorado player and will be only the fifth and sixth retired jersey numbers in CU football history.

Both players played only two seasons at Colorado after transferring from Jackson State in Mississippi. But both made historic marks on the program. Sanders, son of Colorado coach Deion Sanders, set over 100 school records, including career passing touchdowns and completion percentage. Hunter, the receiver/cornerback, won the Heisman Trophy last year and is described in his CU bio as the ‘most decorated player in a season in college football history,’ including his win of eight major college football awards in 2024.

The ceremony to retire their jersey numbers will happen at the start of CU’s annual spring football intrasquad game on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2.

Both players are expected to be first-round NFL draft picks on April 24 after helping the program finish 9-4 in 2024 just two years after the Buffaloes went 1-11 in 2022.

Only four other players have had their numbers retired in CU’s 135-year football history:

∎ Byron White’s No. 24. White finished second in the Heisman voting in 1937 and went on to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

∎ Joe Romig’s No. 67, worn by the guard/linebacker in 1959-61 before he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

∎ Bobby Anderson’s No. 11, worn by quarterback/tailback in 1967-69 before he also was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

∎ Rashaan Salaam’s No. 19, worn by the running back in 1994 when he also won the Heisman Trophy.

Swift decision by Colorado on retiring these numbers

The retirement of Hunter’s and Sanders’ jersey numbers marks the soonest Colorado has retired a player’s number after his final college game, triggering some discussion about it by former Colorado players. Salaam’s jersey number wasn’t retired until 2017, nearly 23 years after his final season at CU (and after he died in 2016).

Anderson’s number was retired the soonest before that − at halftime of the spring game following his last season at CU, on May 9, 1970.

Former Colorado receiver Darrin Chiaverini discussed the timing of this news in a post on social media site X. Hunter’s and Sanders’ last college game was in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 28.

“Retiring numbers is a huge honor and something that should never be taken lightly,” Chiaverini wrote. “I believe strongly that there should be a cooling off period, the same as with the Hall of Fame in the NFL, so decisions are not made out of emotion.”

Former Colorado linebacker Chad Brown echoed that sentiment on X.

‘You win the Heisman, I get it,’ Brown wrote. ‘But at least a waiting period please.’

Chiaverini wasn’t arguing against giving this honor to Sanders and Hunter, just noting a number of other great CU players hadn’t had their numbers retired, including quarterbacks Darian Hagan and Kordell Stewart.

Hagan reposted Chiaverini’s post on X Monday. Brown said CU’s No. 2 jersey ‘will always be Deon Figures for me,’ referring to the former CU defensive back who previously wore No. 2 and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame last year.

“Legacy’s need time to be evaluated and proper steps should be taken so history is preserved properly,” Chiaverini wrote. “Congratulations to Shedeur and Travis. No doubt they are etched in Colorado Football lore but let’s make sure we honor those that came before.”

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com

(This story was updated to add new information.)