Craig Staub has seen this before.
Granted, it was a long time ago — all the way back in the Pop Warner Super Bowl when his son was a fifth-grader. But it provided a glimpse into the game-altering confidence that everyone witnessed inside Folsom Field last Saturday against Delaware.
With the championship game hanging in the balance on the final play, Ryan Staub called his own number and checked out of a run so he could exploit a matchup he saw with his receiver.
“I don’t think his coach gave him discretion to do that,” Craig Staub recalled. “Rather, it was some kind of gesture to his (receiver), and they pulled it off.”
While the game may not have been entirely on the line when Staub came in for the final series of the first half against Delaware last Saturday, things were far from comfortable with the Buffs’ lead just three points.
The backup to Shedeur Sanders the last two seasons and the team’s third-string QB entering 2025, Staub proceeded to engineer a 75-yard TD drive in 36 seconds. By the time he left the game early in the fourth quarter, the Buffs were up 31-7, and the CU student section was chanting his name.
It was a performance nobody saw coming, and one that set Staub up for a shot at being the team’s QB1 in CU’s Big 12 opener in Houston on Friday. He became the first QB in CU history to be the third quarterback in a game and throw two touchdowns, and he finished 7-of-10 passing for 158 yards.
“Going from giving signals to getting in the game, c’mon man, that don’t happen,” CU head coach Deion Sanders said. “… That’s a blessing for me, because I really take a liking to those young men (who are underdogs). Like, I’m the guy who cried when I saw the movie ‘Rudy.’
“… That means a lot to me to see that kid stick around, and get an opportunity, when he could’ve easily dipped (in the transfer portal).”
With Shedeur off to the NFL, CU brought in two quarterbacks to compete for the starting job: five-star freshman Julian Lewis and veteran transfer Kaidon Salter, who started the two previous seasons at Liberty. Salter started both games so far, and Lewis was the second QB last Saturday before Staub took over on the fifth drive.
Sanders declined to confirm an ESPN report from earlier this week saying that Staub would be the starter on Friday. But the coach did say that Staub got the first-team reps in practice this week, and acknowledged after the win over Delaware that “I saw what everybody else saw today.”
What everyone else saw was a quarterback ready for his moment after spending over two years toiling in the background. Staub’s lone career start came on Nov. 25, 2023, at Utah, when Shedeur was injured. Staub played well in that game, a 23-17 loss, and appeared briefly in just three games last year.
When CU brought in Lewis and Salter this season, Staub did what most QBs in the transfer portal age would not: He stayed. He never lost the confidence of that fifth-grade Pop Warner QB. And with Sanders saying he doesn’t want “to play musical chairs at quarterback” going forward, Staub is now the frontrunner for the job.
“I saw something, and I just wanted to chase it,” Staub said after the win against Delaware.
“I kind of fell in love with the process. I really enjoyed being here, enjoyed (being) in this building, under (Coach Prime). I didn’t really know where I was at. I just stuck my head down and decided to keep working.
“… There’s been a lot of days of a lot of work, some self-doubt, my own battles. It’s crazy to be rewarded this way. It doesn’t really feel real.”
Colorado quarterback Ryan Staub (16) warms up before an NCAA college football game Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
The road game against Houston — a much more formidable opponent than Delaware at home — is Staub’s chance to prove he’s no Rudy, who famously lacked the physical stature to play major college football.
Staub’s performance on Saturday led the man who recruited him, former CU interim head coach and current Valor Christian boss Mike Sanford, to tweet “Told y’all… He’s (CU’s) best quarterback.”
Those who grew up playing with and coaching Staub echoed that sentiment.
In two years at West Ranch High School in Stevenson Ranch, Calif., Staub passed for 5,422 yards and 58 touchdowns while posting a 19-4 record. He led West Ranch to its first Foothill League title as a senior while earning the league’s MVP award.
“He always elevated the players around him — he had a rising-tide-lifts-all-ships kind of mentality,” former West Ranch head coach Chris Varner said. “It was an intangible you can’t put a price tag on, and it became a cult of personality around him, in a good way. Everybody got better with him at the helm.”
Varner says Staub’s football IQ was a big part of his prep success and a driving factor in Sanford offering the QB before his senior season. That aspect of Staub’s game was on display against Delaware, when audibles to a go route at the line of scrimmage led to a pair of big plays to wideout Sincere Brown.
The first was a 71-yard TD heave on the opening drive of the second half. The other was Brown’s 36-yard reception on the ensuing Buffs’ possession.
“His mindset has always been, ‘I can make this work here, and when I get a chance, I’ll prove it,'” Craig Staub said. “That one-minute drill at the end of the first half, then the long TD (to Brown), those were the first steps in that.”
The quarterback has also long been intensely invested in his process, long before he came to CU.
As a high schooler in Varner’s AP Psychology class, Staub took an interest in the amygdala — the part of the brain responsible for emotional processing. He worked with Varner on adopting breathing techniques used by Navy SEALs to control the amygdala’s fear and anxiety, and implemented those techniques in games.
“He was always looking for that next thing in his preparation that would lead to more success when the lights were on, and it was unlike any other kid I’ve coached,” Varner said.
That unflappable approach has shown up in Boulder. As Sanders put it on Saturday, “Staub don’t trip.”
That was certainly the case during his high school days, too.
One road game during his senior season, the opposing student section put Staub’s birthday on an enormous banner — a jab at the fact that the quarterback was older — and came ready with an array of chants. That school, Saugus, pummeled West Ranch 42-8 the previous season.
But instigated by the Saugus student section, Staub flipped the script that night in a 43-6 beatdown. He threw for 380 yards and five TDs, and also ran for 100 yards.
“They were trying to get in his head, and that just doesn’t work with a guy like Staub,” recalled one of Staub’s high school wideouts, Maverick Diaz. “From that moment, you knew he wasn’t going to lay off the pedal. He looked at the huge banner as we were walking into the stadium, and he goes, ‘It’s game on.’ ”
Staub’s maintained his intense approach as he’s bided his time at CU. In summer throwing sessions in California with another former West Ranch teammate, Chaz Hilst, the current College of the Canyons receiver came away impressed.
While everyone else talked up the Buffs’ QB race between Lewis and Salter, Staub was working like he was going to be the man all along.
If things go well Friday in Houston, he just might be.
“His accuracy and detail to the game continued to elevate, and it really shot up this summer,” Diaz said. “His footwork, his pursuit of perfection when he’s out there, was really apparent. Every time we throw, he’s noticeably better. With every throw, you could tell he was grinding for the time he would finally get his opportunity.
“Now that it’s come, those who know him as a competitor out here, we believe he’s not coming off the field.”
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