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September 11th – at California California 52, Colorado 7
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Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott indicated the weekend of the California game that the chances of Colorado moving to the Pac-12 in 2011 are “worse than 50-50”.
Scott did not rule out the chance that Colorado and the Big 12 will work out their differences in time for a move by 2011, but it was looking more and more like the Pac-10 might go with 11 teams for a season. “It sounds like some discussion (with the Big 12) is going on,” said Scott, “but they (CU athletic director Mike Bohn and CU chancellor Phil DiStefano) are pessimistic (about 2011), and are thinking 2012”.
The way the Buffs played against Cal from the Pac-10 in week two of the 2010 season, waiting another year might not be a bad idea …
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Fact: Colorado hasn’t won a road game since 2007.
Reality: If the effort against California in Berkeley is any indication, the Buffs were not likely to win on the road anytime soon.
Colorado turned the ball over five times, including interception and fumble returns for touchdowns, as the Buffs wiped away all of the confidence gained from the opening win over Colorado State, falling 52-7 to California.
The Buffs were their own worst enemies in the first quarter, when the game was still in doubt.
Cal took the opening kickoff and started its initial march down the field.
MISTAKE No. 1: On third-and-one at their Cal 43-yard line, the Buffs jumped offside, giving Cal a first down. The Colorado defense then did force a punt, leading to
MISTAKE No. 2: On a short punt, Travon Patterson called for a fair catch at the Buffs’ five yard line, pinning the Buff offense deep in its own territory.
On the first offensive play of the game, Rodney Stewart gave the Buffs some breathing room, rushing for five yards, but …
MISTAKE No. 3: Illegal block, negating the run. The next three plays went nowhere, and the Buffs were forced to punt.
MISTAKE No. 4 came when Zach Grossnickle’s punt of 38 yards was returned 23 yards to the Colorado 19. Starting their second drive in the red zone, Cal needed only three plays to score, with quarterback Kevin Riley hitting running back Shane Vereen for a 13-yard touchdown.
7-0, Cal. 7:23 to play in the first quarter.
The Buffs’ second drive would have started outside the shadow of their own goalposts, but …
MISTAKE No. 5, a holding call on the runback, followed by …
MISTAKE No. 6, a false start … and the second Colorado drive was quickly back at the CU seven yard line. Three incomplete passes later, the Buffs were forced to punt, and the Bears were back in business on the Colorado side of the field.
A glimmer of hope was felt by Colorado fans as the Buff defense held the Bears when a fourth-and-two pass by Riley fell incomplete at the Colorado 39-yard line. The Buffs registered their first first down of the game on an 11-yard pass from Tyler Hansen to Kyle Cefalo, but that was soon negated on back-to-back sacks.
On the second sack, Hansen fumbled, with the Bears recovering at the Colorado 31-yard line. The fumble, MISTAKE No. 7 of the quarter, was quickly converted, as the Bears needed only six plays to score again. Kevin Riley hit Marvin Jones on a four yard pass to up the lead to 14-0, California.
The first quarter ended with a Rodney Stewart run for a loss of a yard, and another sack of Tyler Hansen.
First quarter score: California 14; Colorado 0.
Colorado in the first quarter … Four possessions: 13 plays, minus-19 yards total offense. Three penalties for 20 yards. SEVEN MISTAKES.
And it was about to get worse …
On the first play of the second quarter, Tyler Hansen suffered his second turnover of the game, an interception. Cornerback Bryant Nnabuife picked off Hansen’s offering at the CU 34, returning it 13 yards to the 21. The Colorado defense held, though, forcing a 31-yard field goal by Cal kicker Giorgio Tavecchio.
17-0, California.
A three-and-out by the Colorado offense was followed by a six-play, 72-yard drive by California to end any doubt about the direction the fifth game in the Colorado/California series was going. A three yard run by Shane Vereen upped the lead to 24-0, and the rout was on.
A drive for respectability was then mounted by the Colorado offense. The Buffs held onto the ball for 17 plays, but, due to three Colorado penalties for 25 yards, the drive went only 36 yards. A 42-yard field goal attempt by Aric Goodman was wide left, and the debacle continued.
The Colorado defense did force a three-and-out late in the second quarter, with the Buff offense taking over at the CU 22-yard line with just over a minute to play. After one first down, Tyler Hansen was forced from the pocket. Trying to make a play, Hansen tried to get a left-handed heave to tight end Ryan Deehan. The ball was behind Deehan, and the ball was picked off by Cal linebacker Michael Mohamed, who took the ball 41 yards for yet another California touchdown.
31-0, California, at the half.
Game. Set. Match.
The third quarter, oddly enough, was all Colorado.
Seriously.
Colorado held the ball for 12 plays to open the second half. The drive did result in a punt, but consumed 6:15 of clock. A three-and-out by Cal was followed by the only scoring drive of the game for the Buffs. A nine play drive covered 60 yards, with Tyler Hansen scoring on a four yard run on fourth-and-goal to break the ice for Colorado. Another three-and-out gave the Buffs the ball back at the end of the quarter.
Third quarter stats … Colorado: 22 plays, 92 yards, 10:56 of possession time. California: three plays, eight yards, 4:04 of possession time. 7-0, Colorado.
So much for the Colorado highlights.
In the fourth quarter, Cal restored order.
A 62-yard pass from Kevin Riley to Marvin Jones set up an eight-yard touchdown pass from Riley to Keenan Allen.
Yet another Tyler Hansen interception gave Cal the ball back, and the Bears then quickly marched down the field, capped by a one-yard touchdown pass from Riley to Isi Sofele.
Then, to add insult to injury … the Buffs took over on downs with less than two minutes to play. After Travon Patterson dropped a sure touchdown pass from Tyler Hansen on the first play, Colorado pushed the ball as far as the Cal 29 yard line. A Hansen pass to Ryan Deehan was complete, but Deehan fumbled the ball at the Cal 18. Cornerback Darian Hagan, Jr., son of Colorado running backs coach Darian Hagan, returned the ball 82 yards for a touchdown with 34 seconds to play.
52-7, California.
“We got off to a bad start, and it got worse from there,” said Dan Hawkins, who could not be accused of overstatement.
“We just didn’t execute. It’s disappointing,” said junior quarterback Tyler Hansen, who went 18-for-34 for 166 yards and three interceptions on the afternoon. “Cal’s a lot faster and more athletic than Colorado State was. We underestimated how fast they were. I think that was the biggest key.”
Wide receiver Scotty McKnight, who was held to just two catches for 14 yards, may have summed up what many Buff players, and fans, were feeling after the 52-7 debacle: “This is the most embarrassing game of my life,” said McKnight. “I don’t even know how to handle it. We did not show up today. We have the players. We have talented guys, but we just executed terribly today in all phases of the game. We didn’t show up at all today. We need to. Cal is a good football team. They’ve got some great players … We have some great players as well. We beat ourselves most of the day. We didn’t give them a chance to beat us. We continuously got penalties and turned the ball over. That’s stuff we can control and we didn’t. That’s why the score looks like that.”
There will be little time for soul searching. Hawaii, 2nd in the nation in passing at over 400 yards per game, is up next. The Rainbows were 1-1 after racking up 588 total yards of offense in a 49-36 loss to USC, and 343 yards passing in a 31-28 victory over Army.
What had seemed like the easiest game on the 2010 schedule is once again looking like the latest “must win” for Colorado head coach Dan Hawkins …
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Game Notes –
– The loss to California gave the Bears a 3-2 edge overall, including a 2-0 record in games played at Berkeley.
– In the five game series, the losing team had never led. That is to say, there has never been a lead change in any of the games. “He who scores first, wins”, was the model for CU v. Cal.
– California’s dominating win, coupled with a 52-3 win over Cal-Davis to open the season, was enough to impress the coaches participating in the USA Today poll. Unranked to start the season, the 2-0 Bears debuted as the No. 24 team in the nation.
– Colorado actually led in total offense after three quarters, 179 yards to 168, but the score at the end of the third quarter was 31-7, Cal. The Bears went on to post 188 yards of total offense in the fourth quarter, while the Buffs registered 62.
– Of Colorado’s nine penalties (for 75 yards), seven were called on the offense.
– Junior safety Anthony Perkins led the Buffs with 11 tackles (four solo).
– Junior tight end Ryan Deehan had career highs for catches (four) and yards (51).
– Junior running back Rodney Stewart had 80 yards rushing, but it took 29 carries to get those yards. The 29 carries were the second highest total of Stewart’s career (he had 32 against Wyoming in 2009). Stewart now has 1,573 career rushing yards, good enough for 25th on the all-time list. Against Cal, Stewart passed Billy Waddy (1,537; 1973-76) and Ward Walsh (1,565; 1968-70).
– Three players made their first career starts against Cal: senior wide receiver Travon Patterson; senior tight end Luke Walters; and junior defensive back Travis Sandersfeld.
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10 Replies to “California 52, Colorado 7”
Hanson played like crap but at least he has the huevos to take blame and make a bold statement about not allowing this to happen again. Can he walk the talk……..we’ll see but it’s more than what we hear from Hawkins. Being an avid football fan, you constantly hear commentators make statements about teams making “adjustments”. Since we were losing so badly at halftime, my thinking was that we could still win the second half, though not the game, and make the final score respectable. To that end, I thought for sure that the coaches would rip the players in the locker room at halftime, and make the necessary adjustments to slow down the Cal rush. WRONG !
Hawkins did rear his ugly head out of his hole yesterday for the mandatory Big 12 coaches call. If you missed what little he had to say, be assured that at no point did he take ANY responsibility for the loss and as always, he blamed the players. I adhere to my previous position as to his lack of character.
There is an email being circulated urging people to write to the CU regents before their Friday meeting to demand Hawkins be fired now. I got it from someone who contributes literally 10s of thousands of dollars per year to the program. Hawkins has lost the contributors, he has lost the fans and he has lost the team. Here is where you can write. https://www.cu.edu/regents
It was evident in the 1st quarter that other than the damm penalites the speed of their defensive front 7 was creating huge problems for us. Couldn’t run outside (designed or bounced) and our underneath passing game was non-existent b/c their LBs could either drop quicker than we expected or could run short patterns w/our guys.
Hansen deserves some of the blame too…worst game I’ve ever seen him play. Really would have liked to have seen Cody, just to put away any fear that Hansen gets benched in the future…he’d been good for at least one pick 6 (and a couple of drubbings).
On the plus side of the trip (in all honesty was perfect other than the frickin game we came for) Bohn was 3 rows in front of us and we had a good time letting our feelings be known…
“Cal`s a lot faster than Colorado State was and they`re a lot more athletic,” said Hansen, whose four mistakes led to 24 Cal points. “We knew that going in, but I guess their speed surprised us a little bit.
“I think we underestimated how fast they were. That was the biggest key.”
Are you kidding me? Does anyone in our football operations watch college football? I know they are busy w/fixing this broken team, but how about watching tape of your upcoming opponent? This is the Pac-10 people..everyone knows the sterotype….lots and lots of fast, quick kids on both sides of the ball. The league is built on speed, it gets a bad rap b/c the DLs are all around 220-230 (w/the exception of the nose) and the LBs are 180-210lbs. But they are all frickin fast.
Telling everyone in Berkeley that would listen, this game was not about winning/losing. It was about getting on the field and finally being able to compete from an athletic standpoint. I just wanted to erase all the memories of teams like Toldeo and annually Missouri run around us like we are stuck in mud. Unfortunately this is where the damm recruiting grades show up…let’s face it, those are primarly based on measureables like the combine…speed/size. While our plethora of 3 star recruits are good football players, they are not superior athletes and until we can physically compete there is no chance beating teams like Cal with our coaching staff/game plans.
OK. So I have either attended or watched (on the tube) every CU game since 1963 (and many before then), and the current debacle is so sad it defies description.I was so embarrassed by the Montana State game but I thought “well at least they’ve bottomed out” even though that was the worst CU performance I had seen in the 400 plus games I had watched. But they keep trying to seek new depths. Yes, I understand that the coach doesn’t throw interceptions or jump before the snap or drop the ball. But he is responsible for the level of intensity and – oh yes – he did recruit these guys. In Saturday’s game it was disheartening to see both lines screw up while being shoved all over the Bay area. While the Buffs still have a good chance to beat Hawaii that will just be a smoke screen as they march inexorably to a 3 or 4 win season.
After the Colorado-Eastern Washington game a few years ago an EWU player said of Colorado “that’s not a Big 12 level team”.
I agreed with that statement then, and I think it is true now. McKnight might think CU has talented players. They do not. CU would have trouble beating UC Davis or Portland State.
CU does not recruit well. I’m not sure why. I’m sure Hawk and his staff know who is good in high school, but they do not get them to come to CU.
While Hansen needs to take a 3 step drop, the fact that he was taking 5-7 step drops was a coaching mistake. Give your QB a chance. On the other hand, Hansen typically throws behind the receiver. All that said, this team has not gotten better. Do we have better talent than Cal? Maybe, maybe not. But I would not hesitate in saying that we do have a coaching staff that is subpar. The line play was terrible it appeared that we did not adjust. I would say that if the team is 1-3 by the time conference starts, the players are going to start questioning the competence of the coaching staff. Never a good situation.
I think this write up was pretty charitable. Another mistake in the first quarter shoulder have been Tyler Hansen badly underthrowing a wide open Toney Clemons, taking away a sure touchdown and keeping the ball in our own end of the field.
And can somebody teach Tyler Hansen that he needs to take a 5 or 7 step drop, not an 11 step drop? Even when there was no push in his face he would keep backpedaling into the rush around the ends. Solder played awful, but his qb didn’t do him any favors.
This loss should be humiliating to anyone associated with the program. On here and the message boards you can find fans from coast to coast angered and frustrated by this terrible effort. You can also find honest players, Solder and McKight in particular talking about their embarrassment. But guess what you will not find: any word from Hawkins, any acknowledgement that HE might have played a role, not ONE word from him taking responsibility. The miserable coward cannot even come out and speak and deal with the wreckage he has created.A piece of advice for the gutless jerk, Go live in your cave until you get fired, take your unearned money and scurry back to whine about how the players let YOU down. WE are done with you.