In the end, the Colorado football team had plenty to celebrate, enjoying a party on the field and in the locker room after a 38-31 overtime win against Baylor on Saturday night.

It wasn’t the type of performance that left the Buffaloes satisfied, though, as they get ready to visit Central Florida on Saturday in Orlando, Fla. (1:30 p.m. MT, Fox).

“Well, it makes us take a deep dive, a reality, knowing we gotta … we can’t afford to do that type of stuff again,” quarterback Shedeur Sanders said. “And we definitely getting punished (Sunday). We’re getting punished tomorrow for all the mistakes, I would say, for all the penalties, just for missed throws, missed everything. Missed reads.”

Down 14 points in the first half and down by a touchdown before a desperate, miraculous touchdown pass from Sanders to LaJohntay Wester on the final play of regulation that sent the game to overtime, the Buffs know they escaped on a day when they weren’t great.

“At the end of the day, we still didn’t want to win a game like that,” star Travis Hunter said. “We wanted to go out with a bang. And that’s not the way we want to win. We got to go out and play how we should play.”

On special teams, the Buffs were a mess. Baylor’s Jamaal Bell had a 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown, while Josh Cameron had a 54-yard punt return in the first quarter that set up a field goal. That’s 10 points directly attributed to the special teams.

“We’ve gotta do a better job of covering,” said head coach Deion Sanders, whose team had done well in coverage during the first three games. “We have so much personnel that’s able and capable of doing that.

“And we’ve got to get the ball in the end zone kicking off. I mean, we got to do that.”

Kickoff specialist Jace Feely has been inconsistent with that, as only 10 of his 17 kickoffs have been touchbacks, but he did get his kick a couple yards into the end zone on Bell’s big return. But Feely suffered a season-ending knee injury Saturday and the Buffs will need to find a replacement.

Defensively, the Buffs were solid all night, allowing just 314 yards, but they were gashed several times on runs by Bears quarterback Sawyer Robertson. Baylor finished with 166 yards on the ground, the most allowed by the Buffs this season.

“We didn’t play up to our capabilities or our ability whatsoever,” Coach Prime said of the run defense. “We blew some things. … We knew (the quarterback draws) were coming and we thought we were prepared for that. They ran that play several times as well as in overtime, so we got to do a better job of that.”

Meanwhile, the offense still hasn’t hit its stride, despite having one of the best quarterbacks in the country and a receiving corps that could make a case for being the best in the land.

Shedeur threw for 341 yards and two touchdowns, but he also threw 16 incompletions — tied the second-most in a single game in his career. And he was sacked a career-high eight times.

When CU got the ball with 2 minutes, 38 seconds left in the second quarter, down 24-10, it had just 128 yards on 34 offensive snaps. Then, Shedeur connected with Omarion Miller, who broke a tackle and turned a nice gain into a 58-yard touchdown.

“When Omarion got in and made that play, we needed somebody,” Shedeur said. “We needed somebody to make a play and do something special. That was, I say, the message during the game, because offensively, we wasn’t just clicking. I was missing reads. You gotta understand, I can’t have a game like that again.”

CU got away with it on Saturday because in crunch time, Shedeur, Hunter, Wester and others made big plays.

“Overall, you know, they were resilient,” Coach Prime said.

Tougher tests await, though, starting with Saturday’s game in Orlando.

“We still have more to go,” Hunter said. “We still have more to do. We still got to improve. Like we said, we don’t like the outcome of the game, but we love the outcome of the game because it showed that we have the effort, we’re going to fight to the end till the clock says :00.

“We still got expectations for our team, and we don’t want no games to be close, but we still came out with the dub (win), so we’re happy with the dub.”