Five days. That’s how long until spring practice starts in Boulder, and Coach Prime just lost his defensive coordinator.

Robert Livingston is out for the Colorado Buffaloes, taking a defensive assistant job with the Denver Broncos on Wednesday and leaving a major opening and lots of questions in his wake.

The move, was reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter, leaves Deion Sanders scrambling — again — to fill a coordinator chair. He’ll do so by promoting recently hired linebackers coach Chris Marve.

The timing is brutal. Spring ball opens Monday. The Buffs have 47 new transfer portal additions trying to learn a system, and now they’re learning it from someone new. Sanders moved quickly to put Marve in the role, but what choice did he have late in February? Having the former Virginia Tech DC in charge doesn’t change the fact that Colorado’s defense is starting from scratch just five days before hitting the practice field.

The regression was real. Livingston’s first year in Boulder (2024) was actually pretty solid. The Buffs led the Big 12 in sacks with 39, jumped from 121st to 43rd nationally in scoring defense, and rode that unit to a 9-4 record.

But 2025 was ugly. Without Travis Hunter, Shilo Sanders and some other big names, the defense cratered — finishing 111th nationally in points allowed (30.5 per game), 121st in total defense, and a pathetic 13 sacks that ranked 14th out of 16 Big 12 teams. There was a brutal two-game stretch where they gave up 105 combined points to Utah and Arizona.

The coordinator carousel keeps spinning. Since Sanders arrived in December 2022, he’s now burned through three offensive coordinators and three defensive coordinators.

Charles Kelly lasted one year before leaving for Auburn (he’s now the head coach at Jacksonville State). Now Livingston’s gone after two. That’s a pattern, not an anomaly.

The buyout situation adds an interesting wrinkle. Per his contract, Livingston owes Colorado $160,000 to break his deal for an NFL assistant job. Clearly, getting back to the league — and reuniting with Joseph, who coached with him in Cincinnati from 2014-15 — was worth the price of admission.

For Marve, it’s an opportunity he probably didn’t expect this soon. His Virginia Tech defenses were consistently solid — 22.8 points per game in 2024, good for 39th nationally — and he’s got coordinator experience. But inheriting this roster, with spring ball around the corner, is a tall order. They only have eight returning players on that side of the ball, just five of whom are on scholarship.

Here’s the bigger picture for the Buffs faithful: Deion Sanders now enters 2026 with two brand-new coordinators (Brennan Marion on offense, Marve on defense), a roster that turned over almost entirely through the portal, and all the pressure that comes with following up a 3-9 disaster.

It makes us ask the same question we’ve been asking since Day No. 1:  Can Prime actually build something sustainable, or is this just a spinning carousel?

Livingston clearly decided he’d rather answer that question from Dove Valley, where he likely takes a major pay cut in the interest of his long-term prospects over the short-term sideshow in Boulder.

Spring practice starts Monday.