Oct. 1st – at Arizona – “What Did They Expect Would Happen?”

Arizona quarterback Jayden de Laura threw for 484 yards and six touchdowns, tying a school record, leading the Wildcats to a 43-30 romp over Colorado. The Wildcats ran over, around, and through the Buff defense for 673 yards, with ten of Arizona’s 11 drives finishing in CU territory. Arizona was good on 9-of-14 third down attempts, controlling the game and the tempo throughout.

CU’s freshman quarterback Owen McCown went 14-for-30 for 186 yards and a touchdown, also contributing a score on a one-yard run in the Buffs’ first touchdown in the first quarter all season. Fellow freshman Anthony Hankerson led the rushing attack, with 68 yards on 12 carries, including a seven-yard touchdown run for his first score as a Buff. CU’s third touchdown – the first time the Buffs had three touchdowns in a game in 2022 – came on a 14-yard pass from McCown to Daniel Arias.

“That was a very challenging offense and that quarterback, we didn’t slow him down,” CU head coach Karl Dorrell said of Arizona’s offense and quarterback Jayden de Laura. “We didn’t slow him down at all … We just have a tremendous amount of work to do. We’re working hard and we’re trying to improve the fundamentals and things that we do. It’s just not showing up fast enough when we play. That’s the unfortunate thing.”

The victory left Arizona, a 1-11 team in 2021, halfway to bowl eligibility with a 3-2 record, Colorado, meanwhile, dropped to 0-5 for just the fourth time in school history (1980; 1984; and 2006).

Bruce Feldman (Fox Sports) and Stewart Mandel (The Athletic) have a podcast called “The Audible with Stew & Bruce: A show about college football”. Aside from the not-so-clever name for the show, it is a quality podcast with excellent content.

An episode posted this week was entitled, “Georgia Tech fires Geoff Collins. Who is on the shortlist to takeover? Week 5 mailbag!”. Before diving into a discussion as to the candidates for the open job at Georgia Tech, Feldman and Mandel speculated as to which schools might be next to fire their coach … with Colorado and Auburn the most likely candidates.

Here’s what they said about the CU program:

Mandel: There’s been a Power Five coach fired each week since Week Two. So the question is: Will there be another one this week?

Feldman: There might be. Let’s keep an eye on Colorado. Karl Dorrell’s Buffs have been blown out by 25-plus in each of their first four games. It wouldn’t shock me if that one opened up soon. 

Mandel: The weird thing about Karl Dorrell is … It was an odd hire to begin with. They gave him a pretty big contract. It’s not like SEC money, but I believe (the buyout) is in the $10 million neighborhood. And you could see this coming a mile away in the off-season. They had so many guys transfer out, and some of them are already playing key roles for other teams, and then he purposely – from what I’ve been told – purposely chose to go light on bringing in incoming transfers. So … What did they expect was going to happen? 

Five Arizona Players to Watch … CU President Saliman: “I expect excellence and I expect us to turn this around … We have work to do” … An important read (with video examples): Why CU can’t stop the run …

Game Day … UCLA makes a statement with a 40-32 win over No. 15 Washington … In order to survive, should the Pac-12 go “all in” with Amazon? … Brave New World: Air Force Penalized for Recruiting Violations … If Big Ten lands an Amazon deal, it may signal the end of the Pac-12 …

CU has been outscored 41-3 in the first quarter (but even WORSE in the third) … Buffs have won last two v. UA (and is 9-3 v. Wildcats in Tucson) … In what major defensive category does CU rank in the Top Ten nationally? … CU has already had 15 players make their first career starts this fall …

Arizona’s QB, Jayden de Laura, has 4,500 career passing yards; Owen McCown has 258 … Have the CU players given up on the coaching staff? … Arizona is 2-2, but perhaps the Wildcats aren’t as good as their record indicates … Two depressing (even more than usual) stats …

What to take from CU’s fourth straight defeat by 25 or more points … Is Owen McCown going to be one of pieces to the puzzle for the CU offense, or was this just a desperate act by the CU coaching staff? … Arizona has the 108th-ranked scoring defense – can the Buffs find the end zone during their trip to the desert? … Let’s find out …