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Colorado Daily – Wyoming Week
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September 15th
… CU in a few minutes …
Buffs turn their attention to Wyoming: “The season’s nowhere close to being over”
From the Daily Camera … CU (1-2, 0-1 Big 12) will look to get back on track when Wyoming visits Folsom Field on Saturday (8:15 p.m., ESPN) in the final non-conference game of the season.
“We just gotta stay pushing,” quarterback Ryan Staub said. “We gotta lean on each other and just get back to work. Gotta get a win next week and just keep pushing, lean together.”
The Buffs are 13.5-point favorites against the Cowboys (2-1), who were thumped at home by Utah, 31-6, on Saturday. The Cowboys knocked off Akron and Northern Iowa in their first two games.
Losing at Houston wasn’t as big of an issue as how the Buffs lost. As Sanders told his team, they got their “butt kicked,” as they were beaten physically by a Houston team not known for its physicality.
Houston, which has dealt with injuries on the offensive line, including on Friday night, still dominated up front to rush for 209 yards.
Defensively, the Cougars controlled the line of scrimmage to hold CU to 96 rushing yards. Simeon Price busted loose for a 38-yard run and Staub had scrambles for 29 and 19 yards. On the other 20 rushing attempts, however, CU had 10 yards.
On the first play of the game, Micah Welch was tackled for a 2-yard loss and that set the tone.
“I feel as though we have the players with the ability to be physical and run the darn football,” Sanders said. “But we started off getting a TFL, I think on the first or second play of the darn game.”
Welch had a nice start to the season, leading the Buffs with 64 yards on 11 carries in the opener against Georgia Tech. In the last two games, he’s carried the ball 12 times for 12 yards.
Including three sacks, which are counted as rushing attempts, CU had no gain or negative yards on 11 of 23 rushing attempts, and 16 of 23 went for three yards or less. Ten of CU’s 23 rushing attempts against Houston came on first down plays and five ended with zero or negative yards.
“I thought we had a couple good runs, but we just … we weren’t putting ourselves in position to run the ball,” Staub said. “Just always kind of playing behind a little bit. We never got that established.”
Three games into the season, CU doesn’t have much established.
… Continue reading story here …
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September 14th
… CU in a few minutes …
CU Defense looking for answers: “Guys are not making plays. And, we can’t continue to miss tackles”
From the Daily Camera … A strength at times in 2024 under coordinator Robert Livingston, CU’s defense has yet to find a winning formula in 2025.
Eight full-time starters from last year are gone, and the replacements to this point are yielding 430.0 yards per game, including 204.3 rushing yards.
Holding overmatched Delaware to only 84 yards on the ground was spun as a sign of improvement last week, but it may have been just an aberration (Delaware threw for 312 yards and still racked up 396 overall).
“Guys are not making plays,” Sanders said. “And, we can’t continue to miss tackles.”
According to Pro Football Focus, CU had 13 missed tackles in a 31-7 win against Delaware on Sept. 6. That number was 11 against Houston.
There were only six missed tackles in Week 1 against Georgia Tech, but King was often running untouched en route to his 156 rushing yards and three touchdowns.
Missed tackles and blown assignments have led to the opposition hitting the Buffs with big plays – explosions – consistently. CU has given up 44 plays of 10 yards or more this season, including 13 on Friday. That included a 49-yard run by Weigman to set up a touchdown and a 54-yard pass from Weigman to Stephon Johnson to set up another.
If there’s been a silver lining for the defense, it’s that the Buffs have had a decent amount of success in finishing drives. The opposition has scored just seven touchdowns this season, and CU held Houston to field goal attempts six times on Friday.
That’s not much of a consolation, however, with the way teams are piling up yards and controlling the clock.
“We’ve got to do much better on stopping the opposing team from running the football,” Sanders said, while adding, “but we got to do much better in keeping control of the ball (on offense) so the opposing team don’t have that type of time of possession.”
In trying to find answers defensively, CU has rotated a lot of players, especially at linebacker and in the secondary. Nine defensive backs saw the field on Friday, while four different inside linebackers played at least 29 snaps.
… Continue reading story here …
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New AP Poll: Clemson falls out; 0-2 Notre Dame still ranked; BYU just outside of latest poll
From CBS Sports … Dabo Swinney’s 1-2 Clemson Tigers fell out of the top 25 after Georgia Tech kicker Aidan Birr knocked through a 55-yard field goal as time expired to down the Tigers, 24-21. South Carolina also exited the AP poll after Vanderbilt blew them out, 31-7, following LaNorris Sellers’ injury.
Some of the other biggest movers are Texas A&M, up six spots to No. 10 overall after upsetting Notre Dame, 41-40. The Irish, on the other hand, dropped 16 spots down to No. 24. The top three in the AP poll remain unchanged from last week but, Miami moved up one spot to No. 4 after the Hurricanes’ convincing 49-12 victory over surging South Florida.
The game of the week was easily Georgia at Tennessee, as the Bulldogs rallied from down 14 to hand the Volunteers a 44-41 loss in overtime. It marked Kirby Smart’s fourth 14-point comeback, and third vs. an AP top 15 team. They moved up one spot from No. 6 to No. 5.
- Ohio State (55)
- Penn State (5)
- LSU (2)
- Miami (3)
- Georgia
- Oregon (1)
- Florida State
- Texas
- Illinois
- Texas A&M
- Oklahoma
- Iowa State
- Ole Miss
- Alabama
- Tennessee
- Utah
- Texas Tech
- Georgia Tech
- Indiana
- Vanderbilt
- Michigan
- Auburn
- Missouri
- Notre Dame
- USC
Others receiving votes: BYU 94, South Florida 83, South Carolina 82, Mississippi St. 69, TCU 67, Arizona St. 57, Tulane 33, Louisville 25, Nebraska 9, Baylor 6, Clemson 6, SMU 4, NC State 4, UNLV 2, Navy 1.
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One Reply to “Colorado Daily – Wyoming Week”
Who makes the transfer portal decisions for defensive players? Livingston? They are not going to get the guys who want big bucks. There would seem to be many who can tackle out there. CU’s opponents seem to find them.