Colorado Daily – Nebraska Week

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Colorado Daily – Nebraska Week

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September 10th

… CU in a few minutes … 

No. 22 Colorado 36, Nebraska 14: National media game stories and columns

CUBuffs.com … Game Story … Defense Sets Tone, Offense Catches Fire As Buffs Rout Nebraska

CUBuffs.com … Woelk: Coach Prime’s Buffs Showing Great Resiliency

Daily Camera … Game Story … No. 22 CU Buffs continue fast start, rout rival Nebraska

Daily Camera … Rooney: CU Buffs QB Shedeur Sanders punches back, leaves Cornhuskers seeing red

ESPN … Buffaloes ‘impose our will’ in dominant win over Cornhuskers

CBS Sports … Game Story … No. 22 Buffs surge in second half, improve to 2-0 in Deion Sanders era

CBS Sports … Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders breaks out Deion Shuffle, calls out Matt Rhule after win over Nebraska

The Athletic … How Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, defense capitalized on Nebraska’s mistakes to improve to 2-0

The Athletic … Deion Sanders’ Colorado looks, acts and plays like Prime Time in win over Nebraska

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September 9th – Game Day!

… CU in a few minutes … 

ESPN GameDay and Big Noon Saturday will BOTH originate in Boulder for the CSU game

From the Daily Camera … For the first two weeks of the college football season, Fox Sports has sent its pregame show, Big Noon Kickoff, to where the Colorado Buffaloes have played.

Fox will do it again next week, too. And, ESPN is joining the party.

On Saturday, in the final moments of the Buffaloes’ 36-14 rout of Nebraska at Folsom Field, Fox announced that its Big Noon Kickoff set will remain in Boulder for another week.

And ESPN announced that its College GameDay crew will also head to Boulder as the Buffs host in-state rival Colorado State next Saturday (8 p.m., ESPN).

GameDay, which his traveled to locations weekly since 1994, has been to Boulder three times before, but not since Sept. 14, 1996, when the Buffs hosted Michigan in a Top-15 matchup. GameDay was in Boulder twice in 1995.

Fox had originally announced plans to take its set to Champaign, Ill., next week for the Penn State at Illinois matchup. Fox shifted gears and announced on air, with less than two minutes left in Saturday’s game, that it would return to Boulder for a second straight week. The Fox set was in Fort Worth, Texas, last week for the Buffs’ opener at TCU.

“Well, we expect it,” CU head coach Deion Sanders said of the attention on his program. “I know it sounds kind of boastful. At the risk of sounding arrogant, we truly expect that. And that’s why those kids come (to CU). They want the biggest stage and they’re getting that every darn week. And the numbers justify it.”

The CU-TCU game was the most watched game in college football on Sept. 2, with 7.26 million viewers.

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Darian Hagan: “I always think about the pitch”

From the Daily Camera … Ask Darian Hagan about his most lasting memory of the long-ago showdowns against Nebraska, and he reacts as quickly as he once did toying with edge defenders while running the option.

“I always think about the pitch,” Hagan said.

That pitch, of course, was Hagan’s downfield feed to running back JJ Flannigan in 1989, a brilliant mix of improvisation and execution that remains a score firmly affixed in Buffaloes football lore. With the Buffs renewing the longstanding, semi-dormant rivalry against the Cornhuskers on Saturday at Folsom Field (10 a.m., Fox), the CU football stars of yesteryear are grateful for the focus first-year head coach Deion Sanders has put into rekindling the spirit of the rivalry.

“When he first got here, that’s one thing that I told him,” Hagan said. “He asked me about tradition and I told him one of the things was no red in the building. I said obviously we don’t play Nebraska every year, but we play Utah every year and they wear red, too. We should never have red in the building. He wrote some stuff down and he’s mentioned it before to the guys. It’s just a tradition. When you have a tradition like that, it’s something that sticks out.”

Hagan’s option pitch to Flannigan 30 yards downfield — “He got all the credit,” Hagan still jokes about a play officially in the books as a 70-yard touchdown by Flannigan — paved the way for the Buffs’ first attempt at a national title. That fell short weeks later with an Orange Bowl loss against Notre Dame, but it was a 27-12 win at Nebraska the following year — CU’s first in Lincoln since 1967 — that gave the Buffs another chance to play for, and this time win, the national championship.

That 1990 Nebraska victory featured another all-time Buffs performance, this time from Eric Bieniemy. CU’s running back overcame three lost fumbles to score four touchdowns in the fourth quarter, sparking a win that pushed the Buffs from No. 9 up to No. 4 in the national rankings.

… Continue reading story here …

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September 8th

… CU in a few minutes … 

New record set for media credentials 

Tweet from Brian Howell at the Daily Camera … Colorado has issued more than 800 media credentials for Saturday’s game vs. Nebraska (including all the people at Fox involved with Big Noon Kickoff). The previous Folsom Field record was 616 for the Nebraska game in 2001.

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Buffs have been schooled on the rivalry: “I know people take this one serious. As players, we’ve got to take it as serious as them”

From the Daily Camera … Growing up in Florida and playing the past two seasons at South Florida, Jimmy Horn Jr. never had a reason to hate Nebraska.

“But I hate ’em,” he said Wednesday.

Playing for the Colorado Buffaloes is reason enough.

It’s rivalry week for the Buffaloes and it doesn’t matter that head coach Deion Sanders, most of his staff and almost all of his players have never before had reason to dislike the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

“Everywhere you go coach, from high school on up, or from youth league on up, you’re going to have rivalries,” Sanders said. “It’s just learning the dynamics of the different rivalries. I like it. It’s delightful. So I’ve learned the severity, the serious nature of this rivalry and I’m embracing it 100%. This is personal. That’s the message of the week: This is personal.”

… Amid that hard work, players such as Horn and Xavier Weaver have said they planned to learn some history about the CU-Nebraska rivalry. One thing all the players know, however, is that red isn’t allowed in the facility.

“We just know the history of it,” quarterback Shedeur Sanders said. “Colorado, we don’t like Nebraska. Simple. That’s just what it is. We just got to focus on that. OK, cool, we don’t like Nebraska. That’s not gonna change  the preparation or anything like that, because we prepare like nobody likes us because we know we’re gonna get everybody’s best game. So it’s just another thing on top of it, like a little bit more motivation, but we got to already be motivated.”

As Coach Prime and the Buffs showed last week, they can find motivation regardless of the opponent. There’s no question, however, that having Nebraska come into Folsom Field is adding some extra energy to the Buffs, because this one is personal to Buff Nation.

“This is the game that everybody wants to win,” Horn said. “We could play 1,000 games, we could go to bowl games and all that, but this rivalry game, even hearing from fans, they’re like, ‘I don’t care if y’all lose 100 games, as long as y’all beat Nebraska y’all will be good.’ I know people take this one serious. As players, we’ve got to take it as serious as them.”

… Continue reading story here …

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Neill Woelk’s Keys to Nebraska game

From CUBuffs.com … One thing is certain: the Colorado Buffaloes won’t be a complete unknown Saturday to their opponent.

Unlike the season opener, when Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders’ Buffs dealt No. 17 TCU a 45-42 loss on the road, the visiting Nebraska Cornhuskers will have a very good idea of what Colorado can do. They have had plenty of film to watch and digest (and more than likely a few sleepless nights to go with those film sessions).

The question now is whether the Huskers will have any more success in stopping the Buffs when the two kick off the 100th year at Folsom Field in a nationally televised 10 a.m. game (Fox).

The Buffs became the talk of the college football world last week when they unveiled a high-octane offense that produced 565 yards, including 510 yards and four touchdowns off the arm of quarterback Shedeur Sanders and four touchdowns from freshman running back Dylan Edwards.

Matt Rhule’s Huskers, meanwhile, continued to add to a sad storyline that has hounded them for years. A late lead against Minnesota melted away and NU lost, 13-10, on a last-second field goal — handing Nebraska its 14th one-score loss since the start of the 2021 season.

But as everyone knows, funny things happen in rivalry games and a sold-out, raucous Folsom Field crowd will be in a frenzy for this one.

For what it’s worth, the Buffaloes have won the last two against their one-time Big Eight and Big 12 rivals (2018 and 2019). But those games will have absolutely no bearing on Saturday’s affair, as both programs have new head coaches and both are aiming to reverse a long string of unsuccessful seasons.

Still, it’s no secret the Buffs and their fans would like nothing more than to rub the Huskers’ nose in the dirt again. What will it take for Colorado to make it three in a row over NU?

Glad you asked. Our weekly fast five:

1. Stop the run. The guess here is that Nebraska will attempt to pound away on the ground and shorten the game. They know CU’s offense can’t score from the sidelines, and the Huskers’ best bet to keep Sanders and Co. on the bench will be to move the sticks with the run game and keep the clock moving.

Nebraska did have some success on the ground against Minnesota, rushing for 181 yards on 37 carries. Colorado, meanwhile, wasn’t great against the run at TCU, yielding 262 yards to the Frogs’ rushing attack.

But the Buffs need to stop NU on first and second down and put the Huskers into some third-and-long situations. If they can do that, it will force Nebraska to go to the air.

Which brings us to …

2. Win the turnover battle. Nebraska lost last week’s game because the Huskers couldn’t take care of the ball. NU lost one fumble and quarterback Jeff Sims threw three interceptions.

The Buffs, meanwhile, made their 2-1 edge in takeaways count in a big way. CU had two interceptions deep in their own territory, both of which ended potential TCU scoring drives.

A couple more of those takeaways would go a long way in keeping momentum on their side.

… Continue reading story here …

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September 7th

… CU in a few minutes … 

Plati-Tudes: 100 Years of Folsom Field Football: 1920s

… Related … CU Buffs set to open 100th season at Folsom Field … from the Daily Camera

From CUBuffs.com … In this Plati-‘Tudes series, we celebrate the 100th season of Folsom Field over the next 11 weeks looking back at the top game, moments, coaches and players of each decade. Today we begin with the beginning, the 1920s.

Folsom Field was originally called Colorado Stadium when it opened on Oct. 11, 1924.  For the next 20 years would be referred to as both it and Norlin Stadium before it was altered to Folsom Field in 1944 following the death of legendary head coach Fred Folsom.  Folsom coached Colorado teams three different times totaling 15 years between 1895 and 1915. His 76.5 winning percentage (77-23-2) is still tops among all coaches ever at CU.  In addition, old 24th Street was also changed to Folsom Street to honor him.

CU had played its games at Gamble Field for two decades, where seating was limited to temporary bleachers.  In the winter of 1923-24, CU President George Norlin studied the possibility of a new stadium, as the approaching completion of a sparkling new gymnasium (Carlson Gym), the inadequate number of seats at Gamble Field (roughly 9,000) and the growing interest in physical education and intercollegiate athletics demanded that a remedy needed to take place soon.

Investigation of a natural ravine just east of the site of the gymnasium as a site for the new stadium, suggested by professor Whitney Huntington, was not only a convenient location, but by using it a great expense could be avoided.  After a financing plan was worked out, CU’s own construction department began moving dirt with a steam shovel on January 14, 1924.  Accounts at the time put the cost of the stadium at around $2.60 per seat (instead of $10 had concrete been used); the total cost was $65,000.  By comparison, the cost to construct Carlson Gym two years earlier was $350,000.  A press box was included in the cost for $2,000.

The new structure had an original capacity of 26,000 but could be expanded to as much as 30,000, featuring wooden bleacher seating over cement (which wasn’t replaced by aluminum until 1976), and quarter-mile running track.  A California red wood, dipped in creosote, was selected as the initial material.  There were 22 sections divided by radial aisles installed, the same set-up in the lower bowl that remained the same until a slight alternation on the northeast side in 2015. An estimated 90 percent of the football players on the CU roster helped work on the stadium, including painting white numerals on all the seats, as many were putting themselves through school.

Upon its completion, it was the first structure of its kind in the Rocky Mountain region.  The stadium was paid off in less than a decade, and would undergo several renovations and additions through the years; at present, the oldest thing in the stadium are the brick wall façades on the west side, the outside of Balch Fieldhouse which was built in 1936.

The 1920’s

Record: 18-5-2

Game of The Decade: Colorado 39, Regis 0 (Oct. 11, 1924)
This was the first game ever in Folsom, then called Colorado Stadium; it was the second home game of the season as the Silver & Gold opened the year bidding farewell to Gamble Field with a 31-0 win over Western State.  (The nickname Buffaloes was still a decade away.)  The CU yearbook account didn’t provide many details of the win over the “Fighting Irishmen,” but made a point of writing that the game was played “before a fair-sized crowd that looked lost in the immense confines of the just completed athletic unit.”  As for the game itself, the summary said, “The teamwork exhibited was much smoother than it had been a week previous, and the team showed promise of developing into a powerful machine.  The overhead game was not very successful, and most of the gains were made by straight football”.

… Continue reading story here …

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CSU/USC games now also sellouts (first four home games now sold out)

Press release from CUBuffs.com … With two days remaining until the 2023 home opener, two additional Colorado Buffaloes home games against Colorado State (Sept. 14) and USC (Sept. 30) have sold out, bringing the total number of complete sellouts on the season to four.

CU announced the sellout of the season opener against Nebraska (Saturday) and the Family Weekend game against Stanford (Oct. 13) on July 20. The 2023 season is just the seventh in CU history the Buffs have completely sold out four or more games and the first time since the 1996 season. Between 1990-96, the Buffs sold out four of six games five times and five of six games once, in 1993.  CU has never sold out every game in a season.

The 2023 season marks the opening of the Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders Era at Colorado, which got off to an astounding start last week with a thrilling 45-42 win at No. 17 TCU.  In what was the national game of the week, four CU players broke 17 school records including QB Shedeur Sanders, who became the first CU player to top the 500-yard mark and the first player in the last 27 seasons to throw for 500 yards in their first FBS game nationally.  Travis Hunter became the first player in 20 years to have 100 yards receiving and an interception and Dylan Edwards is just third true freshman in the past 27 years to score four touchdowns in their FBS debut. 

The home opener now takes center stage, with the 100th season of Folsom Field starting with the Buffs two biggest rivals heading to town in the first two weeks, with Nebraska (Saturday, 10 a.m., FOX) and Colorado State (Sept. 16, 8 p.m., ESPN) opening the home slate. 

Tuesday the Buffs were rewarded for their performance against TCU with a national ranking, coming in at No. 22 in the Associated Press and No. 25 in the Coaches Poll.  This is the earliest the Buffs have been ranked in a season in 20 years when the 2003 team was ranked in the first two polls of the season. 

CU sold out season tickets on April 17, the first school in the nation to sellout its season tickets ahead of the 2023 season.  CU’s first known sellout was in the 1952 season and the Nebraska game will mark the 77th sellout in Folsom Field History. 

A limited number of single game tickets remain for CU’s homecoming game against Oregon State on Nov. 4 and the Senior Day matchup with Arizona on Nov. 11.  Tickets are available at CUBuffs.com/tickets.

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South Florida WR transfers Horn and Weaver savoring victory: “We shed a couple of tears”

From the Daily Camera … Much like the Buffs fans they will play in front of for the first time on Saturday, Colorado receivers Xavier Weaver and Jimmy Horn Jr. are all too familiar with the agony of defeat.

During the two seasons that duo was paired in the South Florida receiver corps, the Bulls went a combined 3-21 — going 2-10 in 2021 and 1-11 last year. Weaver also was at South Florida for a 1-8 season in 2020.

Unlike the 2022 CU Buffs, who also finished 1-11, Horn and Weaver suffered a significant number of narrow, gut-wrenching losses the past two seasons, yet repeatedly coming so close before falling short takes a toll on the psyche. Horn and Weaver’s South Florida team last year certainly struggled, but in two road games against Cincinnati and Florida, both ranked at the time, the Bulls lost by a combined seven points.

That’s what made last week’s elusive thrill of victory so much sweeter for Horn and Weaver. Two of the Buffs’ many play-making newcomers enjoyed stellar debuts during CU’s season-opening 45-42 win at TCU, and the duo will look for more of the same when CU, which moved into this week’s AP poll at No. 22, hosts longtime rival Nebraska in the home opener on Saturday (10 a.m., Fox).

“We came a long way from the previous school and we were losing a lot,” said Weaver, who went 8-37 in his four seasons at USF. “That dub just felt like a national championship in a way. All the hard work that we’ve been putting in, it just finally showed.”

Yet after experiencing that winning feeling so infrequently the past few years, the only numbers that mattered to the former South Florida Bulls afterward were the ones on the scoreboard.

“After the game me and Xavier, we shed a couple tears,” Horn said. “Xavier’s been in college for like five years. I’ve been in college for three years. Our whole college career has been losing. It felt good just to have a win. And plus at this level, with all the doubters and the haters and stuff like that, it felt good just knowing there’s more to come. At the end of the day, we’re not satisfied with that. There’s still more to come.”

… Continue reading story here …

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September 6th

… CU in a few minutes … 

*Video: Behind the Scenes at the TCU Game*

From DNVR …

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Player notes: DB Myles Slusher out for Nebraska; RB Alton McCaskill “close” to playing

From the Daily Camera … CU safety Myles Slusher played almost every snap on defense against TCU and had the game-clinching tackle on TCU’s final offensive play in the final minute. Coach Sanders said Slusher likely won’t play against Nebraska

“Slush is banged up,” Sanders said. “I don’t think he’s going to play this week. I want to do what’s best for him right now, instead of what’s best for us right now. I don’t want him just lagging and continuing with this. I’d rather him go; if he has to get a minor surgery, let’s go get it right now. You’ll be ready for the run because we’re gonna make a run.”

Notable … Sanders said Dylan Edwards and Travis Hunter are both sitting out of practice until Wednesday to rest their bodies. … Running back Alton McCaskill IV didn’t play against TCU, but Sanders said “he’s close” to returning. McCaskill, who missed the 2022 season with a knee injury, has been in a non-contact jersey since preseason camp started. … Cornerback Cormani McClain, a five-star recruit in the 2023 class, didn’t get on the field against TCU. “He has to be ready,” Sanders said. “He has to get ready to play.”

… Read full story here …

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September 5th

… CU in a few minutes … 

Coach Prime: “I’ve learned the serious nature of this rivalry … This is personal. That’s the message of the week”

From CBS Sports … Deion Sanders has no firsthand experience with the Colorado-Nebraska rivalry, but it hasn’t taken the first-year coach long to understand the significance of the series ahead of the Buffaloes home opener against the Cornhuskers Saturday.

“I’ve learned the serious nature of this rivalry, and I’m embracing it 100%,” Sanders said Tuesday. “This is personal. That’s the message of the week. This is personal.”

No. 22 Colorado stunned the sports world with its 45-42 win at TCU in Sanders’ Power Five head coaching debut. On its own, the upset was enough to send hype into overdrive in Boulder, Colorado as the Buffs prepare for the first home game of Sanders’ tenure. Add in the fact that it comes against a storied rival, and it explains why the cheapest tickets on the secondary market for Saturday’s primetime contest were selling for roughly $400 on Tuesday afternoon.

“Colorado, we don’t like Nebraska,” Buffs quarterback Shedeur Sanders said. “That’s just what it is. We’ve just got to focus on that, ‘ok cool, we don’t like Nebraska.’ But that’s not really going to change the preparation or anything like that. We prepare like nobody likes us, because we know we’re going to get everybody’s best game. It’s just another thing on top, just a little bit more motivation.”

Colorado and Nebraska played every year they shared a conference from 1947-2010. The Huskers lead the all-time series 49-20-2. The Buffaloes won the last meeting between the longtime rivals 34-31 in 2019. While that win came just four years ago, there are no remnants of those Buffaloes to be found in 2023. Sanders is the program’s third coach since 2019, and Colorado’s roster has been overhauled so dramatically that few of the players have been around long enough to know much about the history of the series with Nebraska.

But they’ve learned enough to know what’s at stake – and what color they shouldn’t wear around campus leading up to Saturday.

“Don’t wear red in the facility,” Shedeur Sanders said. “I’ve got to take the red shirt off my website this week.”

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*Video: Coach Prime’s Weekly Press Conference*

From Colorado Football …

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September 4th

… CU in a few minutes … 

Coach Prime bandwagon growing: “I feel like now y’all understand that what he’s saying is real”

From the Daily Camera … Following his team’s remarkable debut on Saturday, Colorado head coach Deion Sanders called out the non-believers.

He also knew that the 45-42 upset of No. 17 TCU would create some more believers in the Buffaloes.

“Now everybody wants to believe,” he said. “I’m good with that. We got room.”

CU has certainly picked up some believers after Saturday’s win. Even the odds makers are turning the corner.

On Saturday, the Buffs (1-0) will host rival Nebraska (0-1) at Folsom Field (10 a.m., Fox). Going into last weekend, the Buffs were seven-point underdogs to the Cornhuskers, who lost to Minnesota, 13-10. At one point in the offseason, Nebraska was favored by 8.5 points.

Now, the Buffs are favored anywhere from 2.5 to 3.5 points by various sports books.

Vegasinsider.com has moved CU’s over/under win total for the season to 5.5; prior to last week, it was 3.5. Colorado has even started to show up in some early season national bowl projections because of the win against the Horned Frogs. And, there’s a decent chance they’ll find their way into the  new Associated Press Top 25 poll that is revealed Tuesday.

… Continue reading story here …

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Must see! CU and TCU run identical plays from five yard line: CU gets a TD: TCU gets an INT

From Emmanuel Acho and TikTok …

@emmanuelacho

Coach Prime is about more than just good speeches, he is about COACHING! Colorado & TCU saw nearly identical plays, but strikingly different results. I hope every sports fan in America watches these 2 plays. This was the game. #collegefootball #footballtiktok #coachprime #coloradobuffaloes #tcufootball

♬ original sound – Emmanuel Acho

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September 3rd

… CU in a few minutes … 

11-point swing in the CU/Nebraska betting line

… All summer Nebraska was an 8.5-point road favorite over Colorado … and now … 

From CBS Sports … Colorado, fresh off a stunning 45-42 upset over No. 17 TCU in Deion Sanders’ debut, is now in an even bigger spotlight as it prepares to host Nebraska in Week 2. The Cornhuskers found themselves on the wrong end of a separate thriller in Week 1, squandering a late lead Thursday in a 13-10 loss at Minnesota to spoil Matt Rhule’s debut as coach.

Colorado (-2.5) at Nebraska: It’s no surprise to see Coach Prime and the Buffaloes check in as the early favorite for their home opener after what transpired Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas. Multiple Colorado players looked like early Heisman candidates against the Horned Frogs, namely quarterback Shedeur Sanders and two-way star Travis Hunter. Sanders set a single-game program record with 510 yards passing, while Hunter hauled in 119 yards receiving on offense and had an interception on defense. Conversely, the Nebraska offense struggled in a Week 1 performance at Minnesota with quarterback Jeff Sims throwing three interceptions. The Cornhusker defense may need to bring its A-game on Saturday if Nebraska intends to avoid a third straight loss in its series with the Buffaloes.

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CU ticket sales receive $300,000 bump after Buffs’ victory over TCU

From the Daily Camera … Colorado’s impressive season-opening victory is already paying off.

BuffZone learned on Saturday night that the CU athletic department sold nearly $300,000 in tickets on Saturday alone, with the surge being attributed to the excitement from the Buffaloes’ thrilling, 45-42 upset of No. 17 TCU.

Since CU hired head football coach Deion Sanders on Dec. 3, ticket sales have been record breaking throughout the offseason.

In anticipation of Coach Prime’s first season, the Buffs sold out their season ticket allotment in April and had record numbers of season ticket requests. The Buffs also sold tickets to the spring game for the first time since the 1980s and the event sold out, with 47,277 fans attending. Roughly 1,900 went to the spring game in 2022.

CU previously announced that two home games, Sept. 9 vs. Nebraska and Oct. 13 vs. Stanford, have already sold out. With Saturday’s surge in ticket sales, the other four games at Folsom Field are close to being sold out, as well. The other four home games are Sept. 16 (Colorado State), Sept. 30 (USC), Nov. 4 (Oregon State) and Nov. 11 (Arizona).

CU has never sold out its entire season. The last time more than two games were sold out was in 1996 (four of six games sold out that year). From 2006-2022, CU sold out just four of 95 home games – not counting the 2020 season when fans weren’t allowed to attend because of the COVID pandemic.

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 Neill Woelk’s Nine Takeaways from CU victory

From CUBuffs.com .. .In the span of barely 24 hours, seats on the Colorado Buffaloes’ bandwagon have become much, much more popular.

The number of folks who believe in Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders’ team has grown substantially, and for good reason. The Buffs opened their season Saturday by claiming a thrilling 45-42 win at No. 17 TCU, a game in which they were 20-point underdogs.

Now, it seems, everyone believes — even the national “experts” who had little faith in Sanders’ plan.

That’s OK with Coach Prime. After taking some of the doubters to task in his post-game press conference Saturday, he also added that there is plenty of room on the Colorado success express.

“Now everybody wants to believe,” Sanders said with a grin. “I’m good with that. We got room.”

Saturday’s win proved to be an eye-opener for a variety of reasons, the biggest of which is the Buffs accomplished just about everything people said they couldn’t against last year’s national title runner-up.

Colorado moved the ball at will on offense, made enough plays on defense and when push came to shove in crunch time — when the Buffs could have been melting in the Texas heat —  CU had the juice and the Frogs came up empty.

Now, the Buffs begin preparation for next Saturday’ home opener against old rival Nebraska (10 a.m., Fox), a game that kicks off CU’s celebration of 100 years at Folsom Field and one that might provide the most frenzied Folsom setting in a couple of decades.

But before we start focusing completely on the Huskers, let’s take one more look at the Buffs’ win in Fort Worth with our weekly takeaways:

1. Coordinator Sean Lewis‘ offense is a beast. Yes, Captain Obvious checking in here. But, the Buffs’ offensive effort is worth mentioning again because of what Lewis and the other offensive assistants have done in such a short period of time.

Lewis’ up-tempo attack is the perfect match for quarterback Shedeur Sanders and Colorado’s fleet corps of receivers. The game plan put Sanders in position to make plays and he responded with a sparkling 38-for-47, 510-yard, four-touchdown effort — the most yards by any quarterback making his FBS debut since 1996. For his efforts, he was named Sunday as the Walter Camp National FBS Offensive Player of the week.

The game plan had the Horned Frogs on their heels all day. They couldn’t concentrate on stopping one receiver because the Buffs have a bevy of talented wideouts, as well as speedy running back Dylan Edwards. The Buffs threw downfield with success, they spread the ball around — and then put Edwards in space with the ball in his hands, resulting in short throws that produced touchdowns of 75 and 46 yards.

Now that defenses have had a chance to see the Buffs in action, it will be interesting to see how opponents choose to defend CU’s offense. But if Saturday is any indication, the task won’t be an easy one.

2. Kudos to CU’s offensive line. Speaking of masterful jobs, you have to tip your hat to O-line boss Bill O’Boyle, who followed Lewis from Kent State to Colorado. Lewis took a group that had never played together and turned them into a solid, cohesive unit.

From a pure statistical standpoint, the line didn’t have a dominating performance. Colorado gave up four sacks and the Buffs finished with just 55 yards rushing.

But, they did give Sanders a clean pocket for most of the day and when the Buffs absolutely had to run the ball, they were successful. The Buffs scored two red zone rushing touchdowns, converted two key third-and-short situations on the ground and were successful just often enough with the run game to keep the Horned Frogs honest.

… Continue reading story here …

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Coach Prime: “Dylan Edwards was phenomenal. I’ve been saying this since he was four years old”

From the Daily Camera …  Dylan Edwards cracked a smile when he sat down to do a postgame press conference on Saturday afternoon.

“I’ve never done this before,” he said.

Get used to it, kid.

The true freshman from Derby, Kan., was sensational in his collegiate debut, racking up 177 all-purpose yards and scoring four touchdowns in the Colorado’s 45-42 upset of No. 17 TCU at Amon G. Carter Stadium.

Edwards is the first player in CU history to score four times in his Buffs’ debut and just the second freshman (true or redshirt) to reach the end zone four times in any game. Michael Adkins was the only other to do so, in a 2013 game against Charleston Southern.

“You don’t come into a game thinking you’re gonna have a certain stat line, but I knew if I prepared myself well and we all executed the right plays that I could score today and it just happened,” he said. “I knew I could make plays out there. We prepared well, so when I got the ball, I was just doing my thing pretty much and reading my blocks and trying to get to the end zone.”

“Dylan Edwards was phenomenal,” said head coach Deion Sanders, who previously coached Edwards in youth football. “I’ve been saying this since he was four years old. And we see that in practice all the time. Don’t let the size fool you. Dylan looks in the mirror like Shallow Hal. When he looks in the mirror, he sees a 215-pound man that’s probably about 6-4. That’s the way Dylan addresses life.”

… Continue reading story here …

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This post, about the Nebraska game, from the 2023 Season, is filed under Article.
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