Quick Hits: Colorado Buffaloes vs. Colorado State Rams

by DavidAGerhardt on Sep 17, 2011 3:31 PM MDT in Buffaloes Football Season

Finally, a victory!!!!!

It wasn't without it's issues for the Buffs, but a win is a win is a win, and we desperately needed one today. First and foremost, penalties and our long-snapping. For me, those were the two biggest issues for us. We are committing a ridiculous number of penalties, and we're not improving in this area. We need to, and it's not okay that we haven't yet.

And holy moley are those snaps getting to Darragh O'Neill slowly! This has been an issue since Ryan Iverson took over the LS duties last season. He gets almost no velocity on his snaps. It's impressive that O'Neill has only had two of his punts blocked so far, and we got lucky that we were able to recover the one in this game.

But enough of the complaints, I've got some good things to say as well!

Follow the jump to hear David sing one of his favorite songs!

We really need David Bakhtiari back. Alex Lewis got some time at left tackle today along with Ryan Dannewitz, and both are okay, but not great. We were able to cover for one sub-par tackle, but we can't do it with Sione Tau playing on the other side. He directly gave up one of the sacks today, and just doesn't have the footspeed or balance while inline blocking to make an impact in the run-game. It means we are often trying to open holes for our running backs with only 4 offensive linemen, and sometimes only 3. This is a problem. Hopefully Bakhtiari can come back soon, which will allow us to play Dannewitz on the right side.

Rodney Stewart had a pretty darn good day. He hit 200 yards of total offense between his rushing, receiving and returning totals. I'm still not 100% comfortable with him as our punt returner, but I guess we don't have any other options.

I'm unhappy with how Paul Richardson was utilized in this game. I guess it was important to establish Toney Clemons as a receiving threat for defenses to pay attention to, but we should have targeted Richardson more. Clemons and Hansen don't seem to be on the same page very often. Many of the passes thrown his way were uncatchable. Either he was in the wrong place or the throw was off.

The Rams may have figured out the best way to counter our defense. They went to max-protect a number of times, and that eliminated much of our pass rush. We made plays when we needed to, and they only scored on a trick play and a QB scramble, but it's still not good enough. Hopefully our defense continues to improve next week.

Greg Henderson really is aggressive! Man did he lay a big hit on the QB. But mostly, who puts their quarterback in that position? To be reaching up to catch a pass without any blockers protecting him? That was an absolutely terrible playcall by the Rams.

Tony Jones finally got some carries! He looked solid out there, and it's nice to know that the coaches trust him a little bit. That's a good thing, especially considering how banged up Stewart got out there today.

Overall, I'm happy we won, but I still wish I'd seen more from us. It was nice to see Tyler Hansen willing us to victory, with his two rushing TDs and the first downs he got, but it shouldn't have been that close. Penalties and mental errors are absolutely killing us. We're not going to have a chance in any of our games if we don't continue to improve.

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Keys to victory next, we know less penalties, and any other cliche but what are our strengths and how can we use them against osu to come out of the horseshoe with a win

by BuffOnYou on Sep 17, 2011 4:41 PM MDT reply actions

We needed this win badly.....

great to watch a Buffs win. Should give the team some confidence. Lots to improve upon, as pointed out by David. But there’s one thing I really liked about our play today…..we took advantage of breaks that were given to us by CSU. The blocked punt and the face mask penalty……those things killed the Rams because we were able to take each one and turn it into a TD. For far too many years we haven’t been able to capitalize on breaks like those……good to see we could cash in today. Looking forward to Ohio State.

by HBbuff on Sep 17, 2011 4:49 PM MDT reply actions

+1

Shoulder to Shoulder

by Buff'em Up on Sep 17, 2011 8:03 PM MDT via mobile up reply actions

I dunno about you but I actually thought...

The most impressive thing for me was the epic 10 minute drive to salt away the win at the end. Under Hawk we wouldnt have gotten that done.

by hvis on Sep 17, 2011 5:15 PM MDT reply actions

actually

under hawk we had drives in spite of him/ play calling. But honestly I don’t remember ever seeing that from the buffs that was amazing. If they get about 3 or 4 of those drives next week we will win no doubt lol jk keep up the progress though

by BuffOnYou on Sep 17, 2011 5:20 PM MDT up reply actions

Could be a defining moment for this team

That was the longest drive in CU history.

Shoulder to Shoulder

by Buff'em Up on Sep 17, 2011 8:04 PM MDT via mobile up reply actions

If it wasn’t the face mask penalty that kept the drive going I might agree. This team needs to clean up their act.

Wow, sorry to be so pessimistic, I just hate sloppy football.

by NPCannon on Sep 17, 2011 9:01 PM MDT up reply actions

10:03 drive

was reportedly the 2nd longest in CU history. Embree is scratching his head on why we keep starting so slowly. Perhaps its because we have a new offensive line every start of a game so far this year. Also glad to see Jones get some carries. Get use to P Rich being doubled teamed, and he dropped a couple of balls as well today. Nice to see UCLA get smacked today, Rick may be gone by November 19th. OSU is very beatable if we can clean up the penalties and start stronger. Fun to watch the game today with some CSU fans. They were happy for a while.

by Roaring Fork Buff on Sep 17, 2011 5:38 PM MDT reply actions

+1 about Tau

I honestly felt good for the guy that he got the start in a Buffs victory after the star-crossed/messed-up career he’s had in Boulder, but god he is slow. The whole game I was thinking how OSU is gonna put some speed rusher against him and he’ll give up 10 sacks.

Got talked into going to the game even though I hate the games in Denver and the whole time I was thinking what a pathetic game-day atmosphere it was. I glanced through the game thread and saw the suggestion about having it at Coors Field, if they insist on having it in Denver that would probably put some spice back into the game and it might actually be a sellout, but it’s never gonna happen.

You’re probably right about Iverson’s snaps, but I’ve been watching O’Neill closely and every time I’m scared because his kicking speed/game awareness doesn’t seem to be there. He doesn’t seem to know when to hurry it up a little. But that probably isn’t his fault, he definitely is one of the most pleasant surprises this year.

Yey Buffs victory! Boo Buffs discipline! I never thought stupid penalties would be such an issue under Embree.

and… UNLV (yeah, the same UNLV that is like the worst FBS team) is whipping Hawaii. Ouch.

by nebraskasux on Sep 17, 2011 10:56 PM MDT reply actions

oh, and I am very glad we won

I need to stop being so negative and I was just looking at the post-game show on DVR and I have a candidate for quote of the year: Darius Walker (guy who is doing the post-game show and should at least vaguely know the area since he was on the Broncos)- “You know it sucks. To be. A CSU Bear!” That’s how irrelevant CSU is.

by nebraskasux on Sep 17, 2011 11:05 PM MDT up reply actions

Ok, now I'm just having a late night college football chat all by myself

D. Scott- 12 rushes for 146 yards 12.2 ypc 3 TDs 1 rec 84 yards 1 TD
Yeah, I know it was against FA&M but I need to see me some game footage of that

and am I dreaming or is there a game being played in Tulsa, OK that is in the 1st Qtr right now?

by nebraskasux on Sep 17, 2011 11:32 PM MDT reply actions

was weather delayed by 3 hours!

yet another reason to not live in Tulsa

by highlandsbuff on Sep 17, 2011 11:51 PM MDT up reply actions

Darrell Scott

yeah. wow. that still stings. But good for him.
Set records yesterday in USF’s 70-17 drubbing of I-AA Florida.

TAMPA — In USF’s 15-year history, no player before Saturday night’s game had managed to get a 50-yard touchdown reception and 50-yard rushing score in the same season.

Junior RB Darrell Scott did that in the same quarter during the Bulls’ 70-17 romp of I-AA Florida A&M at Raymond James Stadium.

http://www.tampabay.com/sports/college/in-first-start-usf-bulls-rb-darrell-scott-unstoppable/1192261

On youtube, while I found no less than seven shaky cameras capturing the FAMU band at USF halftime yesterday, it was hard to find any footage of Scott’s feats. But finally … here’s the source:
http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/video?gameId=312600058

He’s featured on theses vids on the page:

South Florida Rocks Florida A&M, 70-17 (0:59)
Darrell Scott combines for 230 yards and four touchdowns in South Florida’s win

1st Quarter 6:03 – USF 2nd and 3 at FAMU 6
Darrell Scott rush for 6 yards for a TOUCHDOWN. (0:18)

2nd Quarter 12:58 – USF 1st and 10 at USF 44
Darrell Scott rush for 56 yards for a TOUCHDOWN. (0:41)

3rd Quarter 11:49 – USF 1st and 10 at FAMU 30
Darrell Scott rush for 30 yards for a TOUCHDOWN. (0:15)

by JustmyOp on Sep 18, 2011 5:41 AM MDT up reply actions

just watched the game again.

The wide receivers really did a poor job blocking. In particular, Logan Gray got killed on one and was really only effective because he became a speed bump for the corner. Tyler McCullogh missed several downfield blocks that could’ve sprung the ball carrier for TDs.

We absolutely got away with a stupid, stupid mistake. On on punt return, both Stewart and Webb were in. Both wear #5. You can’t do that. Not only were they both in on the play, but Webb actually helped Stewart get up, right in front of the ref. I have no idea how the officials missed it. At the time, CSU had 4th and 2, so the penalty would’ve given them a first down. That’s on the coaches.

Kasa made one of the most head scratching plays I’ve seen. He was rushing from the nose. He had a clear path straight up the middle, but instead of taking it, he seemed to veer off to the left to take on a block instead. Really odd.

2nd TD aside, I thought both safeties played well. But why does Polk even have arms? He never uses them to tackle.

I don’t know why we didn’t try to run the ball more. It was pretty successful. If you want to be a running team, at some point you’ve got to just try to pound away, even if it’s not entirely successful at first. You can’t just try to run when it’s easy. And you can’t spend so much time running wide. 2nd and 1 in the 4th- stretch play to the right. 3rd and 1, roll out pass. You’ve got to at least try to smash it up the middle. We can’t expect to use the screen play so often all year long. At some point, they’ll see it coming. Most likely, that point will be next week.

I thought Hartigan had a pretty nice game.

Look, I've already told Utah to suck it. There's no going back now.

by Phil Fraser on Sep 18, 2011 9:53 AM MDT reply actions