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October 14th – at Oregon State Colorado 36, Oregon State 33
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Steven Montez threw a 13-yard touchdown to Bryce Bobo with 1:34 left and Colorado hung on for a 36-33 victory Saturday over Oregon State, which was playing its first game since the sudden departure of head coach Gary Andersen.
Montez threw for 168 yards and a pair of touchdowns and also caught a scoring pass from Bobo, who finished with nine catches for 126 yards. Phillip Lindsay ran for 185 yards and two touchdowns, falling just 5 yards short of reaching 1,000 yards rushing for the second-straight season.
Jordan Choukair’s 52-yard field goal attempt for the Beavers with 10 seconds left was short, denying Oregon State of the upset. Ryan Nall finished with 172 yards rushing and three touchdowns, but the Beavers, who punted only once all game, could not finish off its final drive of the game.
“It gives us confidence because we were able to finish a game,” head coach Mike MacIntyre said. “We did it a lot last year, but we haven’t been able to do it the last two weeks. … We made a drive and we made a stop when we had to.”
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For a team which was playing loose for its interim coaching staff, the Beavers opened their Homecoming matchup against the Buffs about as well as could be expected. The Colorado quickly went three-and-out on its first possession, with quarterback Steven Montez missing a wide open Shay Fields to set the tone early for the Buff offense.
The Oregon State offense, conversely, clicked on its first possession. Facing only one third down on the drive, the Beavers went 60 yards in ten plays, with Ryan Nall scoring on a four yard run to make it a 7-0 game.
Two plays later, the game was tied. On CU’s second play from scrimmage, Phillip Lindsay went 73 yards for a touchdown. Oregon State 7, Colorado 7, midway through the first quarter.
The Beavers continued playing well on their next drive, with a 38-yard completion from quarterback Darrel Garretson to wide receiver Jordan Villamin on a trick play setting Oregon State up at the Colorado 11-yard line. There, however, the Buff defense stiffened. with OSU settling for a 32-yard field goal by Jordan Choukair to give the Beavers a 10-7 advantage.
After a CU punt, the Beavers took off on another long drive, this time covering 63 yards in seven plays. Once again, however, the Buff defense held in the red zone, forcing another Jordan Choukair field goal. This kick was from 37 yards out. Early in the second quarter, the Buffs were being dominated on the field, but it was still just a 13-7 game.
The next two drives for each team was a repeat. The Buffs again punted the ball away again, while the Beavers put together a long drive again … but again had to settle for a field goal. A ten-play, 66-yard drive got as far as the Buff two-yard line.
A first-and-goal at the CU three resulted in three plays netting only one yard. It didn’t seem like a game-changer at the time, but the Buff defense had made a stand to keep Colorado in the game. Oregon State 16, Colorado 7, midway through the second quarter.
The Buff offense then launched its only sustained drive of the first half. A 15-yard completion from Steven Montez to Bryce Bobo for 15 yards got the Buffs started, but a few plays later, the Buffs faced a fourth-and-one at midfield, with Phillip Montez picking up four yards to keep the drive alive.
Three plays later, the Buffs faced a third-and-19. With a free play after drawing the Beavers offside, Steven Montez hit Bryce Bobo for 38 yards and new life. At the Oregon State 11, the Buffs used a trick play to score. Montez was on the receiving end of an 11-yard scoring pass from wide receiver Bryce Bobo, bringing the Buffs back to within a score, at 16-14, with less than two minutes to go in the half.
That was more than enough time, tough, for the OSU offense to strike. The Beavers covered 56 yards in ten plays, connecting on a 31-yard field goal as time expired.
Halftime score: Oregon State 19, Colorado 14
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It appeared that the first half, when the Beavers held the ball for almost 20 minutes of game clock, was to be repeated in the second half.
Oregon State marched down the field on its first possession after the break, and looked to expand its lead. On first-and-ten at the CU 32-yard line, though, Beaver quarterback Darrel Garretson was hit as he threw, with Buff safety Evan Worthington collecting the pass, returning the interception 43 yards to the Oregon State 46-yard line.
With new life, the Colorado offense scored on its first possession of the second half. A 17-yard run by Phillip Lindsay helped the Buffs get into scoring range. Four plays later, Lindsay scored on a nine-yard run to give Colorado its first lead of the game, at 21-19, midway through the third quarter.
When the Beavers went three-and-out on their next possession – punting the ball away for the first time in the game – the Colorado offense had an opportunity to take control of the game.
Instead, the Buffs quickly punted the ball back to the Beavers, giving the home team another chance to regain the lead.
This time, the Oregon State offense responded, making quick work of it. The Beavers needed only six plays to cover 75 yards, with Ryan Nall running for 19 yards and taking a pass for another 20. At the CU 13, Nall finished off the drive with a 13-yard touchdown. Oregon State 26, Colorado 21, in the final minute of the third quarter.
Down a score, and the game in the fourth quarter, the CU offense came up big. The Buffs put together a methodical 18-play, 88-yard drive to reclaim the lead. The longest play in the drive was an 12-yard completion from Montez to Bryce Bobo early in the drive, though an 11-yard run by Montez, and a six-yard run by Phillip Lindsay on third-and-four near midfield helped to keep the drive alive.
On third-and-two at the OSU 11-yard line, the Buff offense, down five points, came up big, with Phillip Lindsay going for three yards and a first-and-goal at the eight. Two plays later, on third-and-goal at the nine, Montez hit Bryce Bobo for a touchdown. The pair connected again a few moments later on a two-point conversion giving Colorado a 29-26 lead with 8:53 to play.
Could the Buff defense hold the lead?
Nope.
Oregon State went on a long drive of its own, covering 84 yards in ten plays to reclaim the lead. Ryan Nall took it over from the four. With 4:22 to play, Oregon State was back in the lead, at 33-29.
Needing a touchdown to take the lead, the Buff offense clicked. Never facing a third down, Colorado went 82 yards in nine plays. An 11-yard Montez-to-Shay Fields completion, followed by an 11-yard run by Montez, pushed the ball into Oregon State’s side of the field.
An eight-yard completion to Bryce Bobo, followed by runs by Phillip Lindsay of five and eight yards, put the ball at the Oregon State 13-yard line. There, Steven Montez hit Bobo for the go-ahead touchdown. Colorado 36, Oregon State 33, with 1:34 to play.
With 1:34 still to play.
For an offense which had punted only once in the game, and needed only a field goal to send the game into overtime, there was plenty of game clock left.
The Beavers faced a third-and-ten at their 30 yard line, and completed a 16-yard pass. Three plays later, the Beavers faced a third-and-ten at their 46-yard line … and completed an 11-yard pass.
Oregon State had a first-and-ten at the Colorado 31-yard line with 49 seconds still remaining. Two incompletions, and a three-yard loss by Ryan Nall on a run up the middle, though, left the Beavers with a fourth-and-13 at the CU 34-yard line.
There, with ten seconds remaining, Oregon State kicker Jordan Choukair, who had gone four-for-four up to that point in the game, was wide right from 52 yards out.
Final score: Colorado 36, Oregon State 33
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Oregon State out-gained Colorado, 569 yards to 385 yards, and had a 35:40 to 24:20 advantage in time of possession. The difference in the game, however, was in the red zone. The Beavers made into the red zone seven times, but came away with only three touchdowns and four field goals. The Buffs, meanwhile, scored touchdowns on on four of its red zone opportunities.
Phillip Lindsay had 28 carries for 185 yards and two touchdowns, finishing just five yards shy of becoming the first Buff in Colorado history to post back-to back 1,000-yard rushing seasons.
“It’s a difference maker,” said Lindsay of the victory and the Buffs chances the remainder of the season. “What we needed to do was get a win, and that’s what we did.”
Steven Montez hit on 14-of-24 passes for 168 yards and two touchdowns, while also scoring on an 11-yard pass from Bryce Bobo. For his part, in addition to throwing a touchdown pass, Bobo collected nine catches for 126 yards and two touchdowns.
“Those were huge drives,” said Bobo of CU’s two fourth-quarter touchdown drives. “We knew we had the ability to do it. We knew we could drive the length of the field when we needed to. But to do it in a situation like that gives you confidence the next time you are in that situation.”
On defense, the hero was safety Evan Worthington. In addition to collecting the only interception of the game, Worthington led the Buffs with 12 tackles, also contributing two passes broken up.
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Game Notes …
— The win gave Colorado a three-game winning streak against Oregon State, the first conference opponent over which the Buffs had posted such a streak since joining the Pac-12 in 2011;
— Phillip Lindsay continued his assault on the record books with his 28 carries for 185 yards and two touchdowns against Oregon State. Lindsay surpassed the 5,000-yard mark (5,174) in all-purpose yards, becoming he first Buff to do so;
— Lindsay’s two touchdowns gave him 210 points in his career, making just the seventh Buff in school history to top 200 career points;
— With his 10th-career 100-yard rushing game, Lindsay brought his 2017 total rushing yards to 995, just five yards short of becoming the first CU player in history to post back-to-back 1,000 yard seasons (Eric Bieniemy had two 1,000-yard campaigns, but they came in 1988 and 1990;
— Bryce Bobo had nine receptions for 126 yards and two touchdowns against Oregon State. His 126 yards receiving was a career high (his second 100-yard game). His nine receptions were the second-most in his career;
— In the only turnover of the game, Evan Worthington picked up his third career interception;
— The red zone made the difference … While the Buffs did give up 500-plus yards offense for the second straight week (569 to the Beavers), they minimized the damage to a degree with solid red zone defense. While Oregon State reached inside Colorado’s red zone seven times, they came away with just three touchdowns while the Buffs scored four touchdowns in four trips inside Oregon State’s 20-yard line.
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19 Replies to “Colorado 36, Oregon State 33”
4 and 3 seven games in.
Who around here really thought they’d be better than 5 and 2 seven games in?
And, two of their three losses were “just a play or two” (ya’ll love that line) from being wins.
Lose big.
Lose small.
Win small.
Win big.
Our Buffs are still working through the “lose small/win small” phase. At least the “lost decade” of losing big is behind us.
Here’s what I see so far from this team:
The defense misses that experience of 4 NFL draftees, and 4 or 5 other regular starters. And, a defensive line. Tupou, Kafovalu, and Carrell were a big difference in that D (particularly run D). Most saw that being the case before the season started. Some – myself included – tried to convince themselves otherwise.
Montez shows flashes of both becoming great, and… being a redshirt sophomore who doesn’t read defenses that well. Dude is pretty streaky, it seems. His need to improve his touch has been highlighted, as has his need to improve his read and react ability to what the defense is doing, post-snap. But? My money’s on him putting more good streaks together than bad, even through these last six (yeah, six) games.
The offense is finding its identity, and it’s Phillip Lindsay. They’d hoped to unleash the passing game more, no doubt, but? For whatever reasons, some of which I mentioned above, that’s not clicking like they expected (easier to look good in practice than at full speed on game days, maybe). They’ll get there though.
Special teams continues playing solid ball.
They fought and won a tough battle. OSU sucks? They’re a bottom feeder? Ok, well, talk to Wazzu, UW, Clemson, etc.
It’s college football. Part of why we love it, is the unpredictable nature of 18-25 year olds (and their coaches) battling every weekend.
The Pac 12 is probably the deepest conference out there. In college, anyone can beat anyone – almost – on any day. That’s doubly true in the Pac 12.
Khalil Tate anyone? Ok, UCLA’s defense isn’t great (statistically). But, they still have some studs out there, even if they’re not playing great collectively. What’d Tate do? “Just” 15yard rushing average, and what, 11 of 14 throwing or something? Yeah, his record-setting play was all CU’s D sucking. Or? Maybe, just maybe it was a dude coming into his own, who’ll be scary in this league going forward.
AZ’s D? Shut down Rosen.
Utah and USC? Well, our Buffs can beat them. ASU held UW to 7 points? Crazy things happen in college football.
Sure, CU is highly unlikely to win the South. But, wow. It’s pretty wide open still. Can SC run away with it? Will AZ make a push? Utah? ASU? CU?
How many more wins will CU find? Can they roll into Pullberg and steal one Saturday? Sure they can. Will they? We’ll see. You know the Cougs will be pissed, and Martin Stadium will be on fire. Can our Buffs break through that? Why not? I like the matchups of our D against Falk and his posse, and running Lindsay all day against that “speed d”.
I, for one, will look forward to watching how this season unfolds, loudly and proudly rooting for our Buffs the whole time.
Shoulder to shoulder.
Go Buffs.
?????????
I’m not quite as optimistic as all this, but it’s a lot more pleasant to read than a ton of negativity. CU needs a lot of work. Looking at the list of commits for next year on ESPN, it looks good.
This game showed how important Javier Edwards is at NT.
How important Lindsay is to the entire team
How important it is for a QB to read a defense and stay calm is
I’m never jumping ship from CU, so I choose to look for the brighter side of things, but the defense needs to discover some pride and grit and anger.
Though the games have been frustrating this year, my biggest concern has been the lack of passion, fire, pride, and just getting after it. Lindsay is awesome, Montez has times where he appears to put the team on his back, but where is the rest of the energy?
OK, Edwards is out (has anyone heard what his status is?), but what was going on with the DL yesterday? I wouldn’t swear to it, but I think that I may have even seen Frazier taking some snaps at nose — could that have been possible? The DL started the season shaky, with hopes of getting better, but it’s been a crisis since the Pac12 games started.
I had hoped that the days of no pass rush combined with getting gashed off tackle were in the past. Somehow they’ve got to find some DL guys that can hold their ground or this defense is not going to work. Is Lopez still at TE? Maybe they could move him back to DL.
Was never any pressure on ore. st. qb
13 tackles by a defensive back is not a good sign. Turnover caused by a blitzing linebacker. Buffs better get some defensive front guys that are good real soon. That is, for next year, because opposing coaches know what’s not up in Boulder, and “gashing” is again in style for buff opponents.
Yo Stuart,
Take the win. Any win at this point will do. Maybe it’s what they need to learn how to win the close ones. One game at a time.
Mark
Boulderdevil
So I know we are stuck with coach Mac think he might be a fine head coach. Needs new OC and DC!!! Are they under contract past this year?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but until recently (April or May this year?) Colorado schools were limited to a certain number of contracts (6?). So with George, Mac, both BB coaches that didn’t leave a lot for coordinators. I believe they are all at will employees except for the HC and D.J. Eliot who is on year one of a three year deal. He also makes 100k more than Leavitt did.
Wow. Sitting there in the 2nd and 3rd quarter wondering how we had 10 wins last year and look like the conference doormat this year. Boy does this defense miss Leavitt. Where is the creativity/blitzes to get pressure, since clearly this line can’t get it without? The O-line can’t pass protect at all and I think Lindsay gets 90% of his carries despite the line. Montez never looks like he’s getting through his progressions, I don’t know how much of that is him and how much is the line. I thought there were some decent calls on offense but they get destroyed by lack of line blocking (the flea flicker pass back to Montez where he had to scramble for his life comes to mind). Hard for me to say it’s on the O-coordinators when the line can’t block. Looking at the stat line for this game …. how did we win it?
Buffs win the toilet bowl. Yehaaa
2 more for a bowl
That is the focus
Other than getting rid of the offensive staff
Buffs
yup
got the win. Only 2 more for a bowl game. I should be jubilant….right? Maybe I am not because we barely squeaked by the worst team in the conference who outgained us by a full 200 yards of perfectly balanced offense. Our players on offense, and in spite of their less than lucid OC (dang its hard to keep it clean)somehow pulled it off. How they did I dont know. Phil of course had a lot to do with it but we only had 2 receivers catch passes and of course Lingering had to run Montez 11 times for a whopping 2 yd per carry average.
I will continue to be a broken record screeching for Lindgren’s departure. Is it to soon to screech for Eliot’s?
Rick….call Leavitt now
NOW…I have been embarrassed to be a Colorado fan before. I have been loyal and devoted but there have been too many bad years to say I have always been a loud and proud Buff fan. I felt a special kind of “What? Why?” tonight when the head coach chose to call not 1, not 2, but ALL 3 of his timeouts for no reason other than because he could. I do not see any strategic advantage that was gained by doing so. It was bush league, it was transparent, it was petty, and it was roundly mocked by the Oregon State sideline.
It is a good thing there are ‘no moral victories.’ Because Oregon State would have one, and credit where credit is due I really enjoyed and appreciated their interim HC. I liked his energy and his enthusiasm and his candor. He seemed like he was happy to be there and really excited about the job he had to do.
Most of the issues I saw were the same. The play calling on offense was bad. The play calling on defense was atrocious. At certain points, it looked like they were trying to call the perfect play to stop the last play Oregon State had run.
I did like the trick play call. It seemed to (at least temporarily) unite an offense that seemed ready to combust. The tension between Montez and Fields is palpable.
A win is a win for the Buffs. But the real winner here was Cory Hall. Want to replace DJ at the end of the season? I wouldn’t complain if he was on Colorado’s staff next year.
We’ll never know, but Mike MacIntyre calling consecutive time outs right before the end of the first half, before the OSU kicker made a chip shot field goal, could have paid dividends at the end of the game.
With OSU lining up for the game-tying 52-yard field goal, MacIntyre still had two time outs in his pocket. Could it be that the OSU kicker was assuming that MacIntyre would again use his time outs, and wasn’t quite mentally prepared when the ball was snapped on his 52-yarder?
We’ll never know …
. A big stretch.
I can suspend disbelief temporarily and give him credit for that level of foresight and strategic thinking, but I would still have to fault him. Once you see Cory Hall laughing at you and using it to pump up his player’s and the fans you don’t call the third.
It was petty and reactionary.
Yeah, Montez is a bit of a head scratcher for me. I’m also not sure how much of his play and abitlity is limited by lindgren…?
Also, again, the d… I know they lost a lot from last year, but they’ve been worked every weekend since unc came to town. That’s not acceptable.
The screeching re: the current oc and dc is fine in my book. And warranted.
Buffalo up!
Bobo was our shining light! If and when Montez can get him the ball, he’ll catch it. Fields seems to have bball on his mind. But in his defense, Montez made some horrible pass throws.