Gooden Named Outland National Player of the Week
September 09, 2026 | Football
BOULDER — Chauncey Gooden has been playing both ways for as long as he has been playing football. Little League, middle school, Lipscomb Academy in Nashville — his coaches always let him line up on both sides of the ball, right up until the one who told him the truth.
"My coach used to tell me, 'I don't know if you're going to get the opportunity to do it in college, but you can't doubt anything in life,'" Gooden said.
He got the opportunity. On Wednesday, he got a major national award for it.
Gooden, Colorado's second-year left guard, was named the Outland Trophy National Player of the Week for his performance in the Buffaloes' 14-13 win at Georgia Tech — the first CU player to receive the honor. He started at guard, did not allow a pressure or a sack, and then, in the middle of a one-point game, walked across the line of scrimmage and played eight snaps at defensive tackle, recording a tackle and helping hold the Yellow Jackets to 51 rushing yards on 30 carries.
Deion "Coach Prime" Sanders said Tuesday that Gooden was the only interior lineman in Division I football to play both ways in Week 1. He also made clear that nothing about it was a gift.
"You'd be a fool to just tell me, 'I want to play both ways,'" Coach Prime said. "I should know that coming in. When I recruited you, I should know that's part of it. You can't just approach me and say, 'I want to play both ways.' Then I'm going to say, 'I want to see you play one way really good. Let's do that first.' That's mainly the criteria."
The template was Travis Hunter. Coach Prime reminded the room that when the staff arrived in Boulder in the spring of 2023, the future Heisman Trophy winner played only receiver for the first Spring.
"He earned his right to get on that other side and do his thing at this level," Coach Prime said. "So they've got to earn it. Chauncey has earned it."
Gooden, 6-3 and 360 pounds, heard the same thing from the beginning. Offense first. Defense if the offense held up.
"He made it clear that I need to handle what I need to handle on the offensive side to be able to play defense," Gooden said. "But defense is always something I've had the heart for. When you see me play offensive line, you can kind of see the defensive line in me. I just like to be physical."
That physicality is what earned him the guard job in the first place after a freshman season of 18 offensive snaps. Gooden said the wait was never a frustration, because the plan was never a mystery.
"It's always about trusting my coaches and the plan they had for me," he said. "It wasn't a long waiting game. They just played me when I was ready and felt the most comfortable."
The defensive audition came late in fall camp, when Coach Prime asked what Gooden could do on the other side. Gooden said his answer was immediate.
"I was like, 'Coach, I can go over there and show you now,'" he said. "So I went over there, I was just causing havoc, being myself. So next thing you know, he just trusted me to throw me in there in the game, and I was just trying to do my job."
Camp also produced the story Coach Prime has been telling on him ever since. In the middle of a practice, Gooden said, the head coach came to him with a proposition: Go hard on this period and the team skips conditioning at the end of the day.
"So I go out there, I pancake two people straight," Gooden said. "I'm talking like I'm really out here dogging my teammates. It was tough, but he told me we didn't have to condition, so I was giving it everything I had."
The team conditioned anyway.
"We had a long conversation about that after practice," Gooden said. "But he just challenged me to go as hard as I can every play — even if it is conditioning or it's not, you've got to be the best player, even if you're tired or you're not. So I feel like that was the main thing he was trying to get through my head."
Conditioning, Gooden admits, has been the hardest part of college football for him, and the altitude did not help. He credits strength coaches Andreu Swasey and Cory Nelms for staying on him, and the effort showed up when it counted: a starting guard who still had enough in the fourth quarter of a Thursday night road game to put his hand in the dirt on defense.
It is a workload few players anywhere carry, and Gooden is aware of whose footsteps he is following.
"Heisman winner, Travis Hunter — best player to do it," he said. "So the fact that I can do what he did, even in the trenches, is just remarkable."
Coach Prime's postgame assessment in Atlanta was simpler.
"He is a dawg out there," Coach Prime said. "When you see some of his cut-ups from the game of what he did offensively to them, you'll understand why I allow him to play defense. That was our deal."
Gooden has bigger ambitions than a weekly award, and he is candid about them. He wants to play in the NFL, and he believes the path there runs through the same thing that got him on the field in Boulder.
"That's what I take pride in," he said. "I feel like that's why they started me here at Colorado — because I take pride in moving somebody off the ball and doing my job at a high level. First things first is taking care of my business here, and moving people off the ball is going to get me to where I want to go."
For now, the business is Saturday's home opener against Weber State at Folsom Field, where Gooden will start at left guard and, if the deal holds, spend a few snaps somewhere else.
"If I can play D-line, however many snaps, and do my thing on that side of the ball," Gooden said, "then I'm definitely going to handle my business on the offensive side of the ball."
"My coach used to tell me, 'I don't know if you're going to get the opportunity to do it in college, but you can't doubt anything in life,'" Gooden said.
He got the opportunity. On Wednesday, he got a major national award for it.
Gooden, Colorado's second-year left guard, was named the Outland Trophy National Player of the Week for his performance in the Buffaloes' 14-13 win at Georgia Tech — the first CU player to receive the honor. He started at guard, did not allow a pressure or a sack, and then, in the middle of a one-point game, walked across the line of scrimmage and played eight snaps at defensive tackle, recording a tackle and helping hold the Yellow Jackets to 51 rushing yards on 30 carries.
Deion "Coach Prime" Sanders said Tuesday that Gooden was the only interior lineman in Division I football to play both ways in Week 1. He also made clear that nothing about it was a gift.
"You'd be a fool to just tell me, 'I want to play both ways,'" Coach Prime said. "I should know that coming in. When I recruited you, I should know that's part of it. You can't just approach me and say, 'I want to play both ways.' Then I'm going to say, 'I want to see you play one way really good. Let's do that first.' That's mainly the criteria."
The template was Travis Hunter. Coach Prime reminded the room that when the staff arrived in Boulder in the spring of 2023, the future Heisman Trophy winner played only receiver for the first Spring.
"He earned his right to get on that other side and do his thing at this level," Coach Prime said. "So they've got to earn it. Chauncey has earned it."
Gooden, 6-3 and 360 pounds, heard the same thing from the beginning. Offense first. Defense if the offense held up.
"He made it clear that I need to handle what I need to handle on the offensive side to be able to play defense," Gooden said. "But defense is always something I've had the heart for. When you see me play offensive line, you can kind of see the defensive line in me. I just like to be physical."
That physicality is what earned him the guard job in the first place after a freshman season of 18 offensive snaps. Gooden said the wait was never a frustration, because the plan was never a mystery.
"It's always about trusting my coaches and the plan they had for me," he said. "It wasn't a long waiting game. They just played me when I was ready and felt the most comfortable."
The defensive audition came late in fall camp, when Coach Prime asked what Gooden could do on the other side. Gooden said his answer was immediate.
"I was like, 'Coach, I can go over there and show you now,'" he said. "So I went over there, I was just causing havoc, being myself. So next thing you know, he just trusted me to throw me in there in the game, and I was just trying to do my job."
Camp also produced the story Coach Prime has been telling on him ever since. In the middle of a practice, Gooden said, the head coach came to him with a proposition: Go hard on this period and the team skips conditioning at the end of the day.
"So I go out there, I pancake two people straight," Gooden said. "I'm talking like I'm really out here dogging my teammates. It was tough, but he told me we didn't have to condition, so I was giving it everything I had."
The team conditioned anyway.
"We had a long conversation about that after practice," Gooden said. "But he just challenged me to go as hard as I can every play — even if it is conditioning or it's not, you've got to be the best player, even if you're tired or you're not. So I feel like that was the main thing he was trying to get through my head."
Conditioning, Gooden admits, has been the hardest part of college football for him, and the altitude did not help. He credits strength coaches Andreu Swasey and Cory Nelms for staying on him, and the effort showed up when it counted: a starting guard who still had enough in the fourth quarter of a Thursday night road game to put his hand in the dirt on defense.
It is a workload few players anywhere carry, and Gooden is aware of whose footsteps he is following.
"Heisman winner, Travis Hunter — best player to do it," he said. "So the fact that I can do what he did, even in the trenches, is just remarkable."
Coach Prime's postgame assessment in Atlanta was simpler.
"He is a dawg out there," Coach Prime said. "When you see some of his cut-ups from the game of what he did offensively to them, you'll understand why I allow him to play defense. That was our deal."
Gooden has bigger ambitions than a weekly award, and he is candid about them. He wants to play in the NFL, and he believes the path there runs through the same thing that got him on the field in Boulder.
"That's what I take pride in," he said. "I feel like that's why they started me here at Colorado — because I take pride in moving somebody off the ball and doing my job at a high level. First things first is taking care of my business here, and moving people off the ball is going to get me to where I want to go."
For now, the business is Saturday's home opener against Weber State at Folsom Field, where Gooden will start at left guard and, if the deal holds, spend a few snaps somewhere else.
"If I can play D-line, however many snaps, and do my thing on that side of the ball," Gooden said, "then I'm definitely going to handle my business on the offensive side of the ball."
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