Colorado coach Deion Sanders summed it up simply after watching his team give up 587 yards of offense -- including 422 on the ground -- in a 53-7 loss to Utah Saturday night.

"This is bad," Sanders said after the worst defeat of his Buffaloes tenure. "This is probably the worst beating I've ever had except when my momma whooped me as a kid."

Sanders knows the value of a good defense. And after another weekend slate filled with high-profile, one-score games, so should every coach leading a College Football Playoff contender as we reach the business end of a 2025 season in which the gap between the nation's top programs is seemingly narrower than ever before.

LSU and Oklahoma , which each entered Saturday among the country's top-10 scoring defenses, got exposed in Week 9 losses to

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