On Tuesday, Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes lost a notable member of the quarterback room to the transfer portal, with redshirt sophomore signal caller Ryan Staub electing to depart the program.
Staub saw limited action in 2025 and was a part of a three-man rotation of starters alongside star freshman Julian Lewis and veteran Kaidon Salter. With Lewis expected to be the starter for the foreseeable future, Staub is focused on finding a new home for the remainder of his career.
This fall, Staub completed 30 passes for 427 yards with a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 3-4. While the transfer portal has its fair share of issues, situations like that with Staub are actually pretty nice. The California native is simply blocked at the position by Julian Lewis, and as he’s multiple classes older than him, the opportunity to play isn’t available in Colorado.
Lewis, a five-star phenom from Carrollton, California, was sensational when he took the field in Boulder. In his first year of college football, Lewis completed 52 passes for 589 yards, with a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 4-0. His best outing came against West Virginia, a 22-29 loss, where Lewis finished just shy of 300 yards passing with two scores and a completion percentage just shy of 63%.
Although Staub had some occasional flashes in the Big 12, he’ll likely be looking at dropping to a lower-level conference to show his ability and earn some playing time as the lone starter.
