“You ever felt like, you won, but you didn’t win?”

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“You ever felt like,  you won, but you didn’t win?”

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There are times when writing the postgame Essay is easy, with the game story writing itself.

Had Colorado pulled away from North Dakota State in the second half (and, for one or two fleeting moments, you felt that might actually happen), and had the Buffs beaten the Bison by a score of say, 41-20, instead of by the actual final of 31-26, the headline might have read:

— “Shedeur Sanders: MVP” (Sanders did have 445 yards passing and four touchdowns, and could have had five but for a tipped pass interception in the end zone); or, simply,

— “Travis Hunter: OMG”

And it wasn’t as if the 2024 season opener wasn’t exciting. There were five lead changes and almost 1,000 yards of total offense. Compare the CU/NDSU game to the only other featured game on the first Thursday of the college football season, Minnesota v. North Carolina. Both games came down to the final play, but that is where the similarities end. In Minneapolis, the Tar Heels emerged with a 19-17 victory over the Golden Gophers when the Minnesota kicker missed a 47-yard field goal as time expired, while the NDSU bid for an upset fell four yards short on the game’s final play.

We’ll know soon enough how the ratings battle came out between the two games, but Coach Prime on ESPN v. a slog fest on Fox?

No contest.

Still, despite a game which any college football fan without a rooting interest would have found entertaining, I was at a loss to come up with a theme for the game.

I wasn’t exuberant at the victory; I wasn’t even relieved.

The game was just … over.

At a loss for a headline for my game Essay. I received two good suggestions as we began our trek out of Folsom:

— “Stop playing to the level of your competition”. CU under Coach Prime has had a tendency to mimic the opposition, getting up for big games, but playing down to the level of the competition in games which should have been clear victories (last season’s comeback win over CSU and the Stanford meltdown coming immediately to mind). The Buffs played well against the Bison at times in the opener, but also, at times, played at an FCS level;

— “No such thing as a bad win”. This is also quite true. For all of CU’s struggles over the past two decades, it’s certainly nice to go into the first full weekend of college football with a 1-0 record. But there is a cautionary tale here as well. The Buffs have now won eight of their last nine season openers (a nice bar bet trivia winner, if you want to use it), but have come away with only two winning seasons in the past eight.

Good headlines and fair topics to explore, but leave it to Coach Prime to come up with the best headline for Game One.

“You ever felt like, you won, but you didn’t win?” Coach Prime rhetorically asked in his postgame press conference. “Giving up the last touchdown on the run, that bothered me, because we pride ourselves on going to get the quarterback …  So let’s move on from there. I’m going to try my best to hold back my anger, but we got the ‘W’ so I’m happy.”

The Buff Nation should be happy with the win. No. 10 Florida State didn’t find a way to beat Georgia Tech in the Week Zero season opener. New Mexico blew a 17-point fourth quarter lead against another good FCS team, Montana State, with the Lobos falling 35-31 to the Bobcats.

Instead of being another notch on the NDSU’s belt of fallen FBS foes, the Buffs enter Week Two with a 1-0 record.

But, as the national pundits and naysayers on the message boards are sure to point out, this was not a dominant win for a Colorado team looking to find (at minimum) six wins and a bowl berth in Year Two of the Coach Prime experiment.

It was a long off-season for the Buffs and the Buff Nation, and while some questions were answered about the 2024 roster, more questions were raised …

Offensive line

If you want to look at the stat sheet through black-and-gold colored glasses, you can note that CU’s completely revamped offensive line gave up only one sack, and there were no penalties for false starts or holding. Shedeur Sanders completed 76% of his passes (26-of-34) for 445 yards and four touchdowns.

At the same time, the Colorado rushing attack was non-existent. After a season in which Colorado was dead last in the nation in rushing (130th, with 68.9 yards per game), the Buffs managed all of 59 rushing yards on 23 attempts against North Dakota State. The longest run of the night was an 11-yard scramble by Shedeur Sanders, with six-yard run by Dallan Hayden being the longest run by a back all night.

To say that the Colorado offensive line remains a work-in-progress is an understatement. The perceived weakest link on the team heading into Thursday night remains so after Game One. There can and should be improvement as the season goes on, and the CU starting five has more playing time together and more film to study, but until proven otherwise, the CU offensive line is a concern.

Defensive line

The Colorado defensive line was touted as the most improved unit this off-season, and there was reason to believe that this was not just hyperbole. Quality Power Four transfers were brought in, and, for the first time in recent memory, the Buffs had quality depth up and down the line.

Against North Dakota State? Another mixed bag. The CU front seven did produced two sacks, and, when North Dakota State was kind enough to run the ball up the middle, the Buff defense was fairly stout. Unfortunately, the Bison were able to run the ball to the outside, and NDSU quarterback Cam Miller was not only able to complete 82% of his passes (18-for-22 … Throw in backup quarterback Cole Payton completing both of his pass attempts, the Bison were an ungodly 20-for-24 passing), but Miller also led the team in rushing, with 81 yards and two touchdowns on his 16 attempts.

One of the CU defensive coaches a few weeks ago had a memorable quote that “You earn the right to rush the passer by stopping the run”. Well, the Buffs didn’t earn the right to rush the passer against the Bison. There were very few third-and-longs against the Bison because, well, there weren’t that many third downs (NDSU went 7-for-13 on third downs overall).

Again, the defensive line was playing together for the first time, but this was against a North Dakota State offensive line with three first-time starters.

If not now, when?

Offensive play calling

When your team goes for over 500 yards of total offense, and your team wins the game, questioning the play-calling sounds like nitpicking.

But, for at least two plays against NDSU, the Buff offensive coaches have some explaining to do.

The first call came early in the second quarter, with CU trailing 17-14. The Buffs faced a fourth-and-one at their 34-yard line to open the drive. North Dakota State had just made it three-for-three on scoring opportunities, and showed no signs of being stopped anytime soon. Punting the ball away was not an option, so the Buffs went for the first down.

Instead of lining up under center, and trusting the offensive line to push the line of scrimmage forward a yard, the Buffs went into a shotgun formation. Running back Dallan Hayden got the ball five yards behind the line … and only made it back to the line.

Did offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur not trust his line to get a yard? That’s what it looked like.

The second call came late in the game. The Buffs had just been gifted a (justifiable) pass interference call with less than two minutes to play on a third-and-eight. Given a fresh set of downs, and with NDSU having only one time out remaining, three runs would have run out the remaining 1:41 of game clock. Instead, Shedeur Sanders launched a pass deep for LaJohntay Walker, a pass which fell incomplete.

The free stoppage of the clock allowed North Dakota State to get the ball back with 31 seconds to play, almost enough time to pull out a victory, with the Bison stopped at the CU four-yard line after a 49-yard Hail Mary completion on the game’s final play.

Coach Prime brushed off a question about the pass after the game, saying that Shedeur (“he’s such a good guy”) wanted to give LaJohntay Wester a chance to add to his receiving totals … ignoring the fact that the play-calling blunder could have cost the Buffs the game.

Defensive play calling

In the first half against the Bison, the Colorado defense looked much like it did in 2023 (and even 2022).

North Dakota State’s first four drives of the game went as well as the Bison could have hoped:

• Six plays, 57 yards, field goal;
• 10 plays, 75 yards, touchdown;
• 10 plays, 77 yards, touchdown; and
• 11 plays, 21 yards, field goal

Not only did the four drives stake NDSU to a 20-14 lead, but the Bison held the ball for over 20 minutes of first half game clock.

The Buff defense was being handled by a Bison offense which had lost three offensive linemen, its top running back, and both of its top two receivers from the previous season.

After those first four drives, however, the CU defense got its act together, forcing punts on NDSU’s next three possessions. The respite from scoring allowed the Buff offense to turn a 20-14 deficit into a 31-20 lead, a lead which the Buffs never surrendered.

Halftime adjustments have not been the hallmark of CU coaching the past few years, but new defensive coordinator Robert Livingston and his staff seemed to have done well in this category against NDSU, giving Buff fans hope for even more improvement going forward.

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Last season, Colorado shocked the college football world when the Buffs upset No. 17 TCU to open the season before a national television audience. Coach Prime and the Buffs became the story in the sport for the next month, with CU getting more attention (and credit) than was likely deserved.

Colorado is not going to jump into the Top 25 after Week One of the 2024 season, however. The Buffs are 1-0, but it doesn’t feel like the 1-0 of last season.

There is plenty of work to be done if the Buffs are going to start posting wins which feel like wins.

The North Dakota State victory may feel like a bit of a loss, but CU is still 1-0 after its opener, and ultimately that is all that matters.

Now it’s on to rivalry games against Nebraska and Colorado State …

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This post, about the North Dakota State game, from the 2024 Season, is filed under Article.
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