Colorado goes into Palo Alto as underdogs vs. Stanford

The Colorado Buffaloes (1-0) see their first road test of the 2020 college football season on Saturday. For the first time in four years, CU heads to Palo Alto, Calif. for a mid-afternoon matchup with the Stanford Cardinal (0-1).

David Shaw’s team dropped their season opener last Saturday. The lackluster 35-14 loss at the hands of No. 12 Oregon was the Cardinal’s second-consecutive defeat to open Pac-12 play in a season for Shaw, and the fifth time during his tenure at Stanford. It was also the third time the Cardinal suffered a season-opening loss since 2007.

Colorado won their fifth-straight season opener with an impressive 48-42 dismantling of UCLA on Saturday night. Karl Dorrell’s debut against his former team came as the first win for the newly-hired coach.

The former NFL assistant and his staff did an outstanding preparing the Buffs given the unfortunate circumstances of Mel Tucker’s abrupt exit and complications with the Coronavirus pandemic. Dorrell also showed a bit of confidence that hasn’t been seen on the Buffs sidelines in a while— a great sign for the future of Colorado football.

Stanford comes into Saturday’s game with Colorado as 6.5-point favorites (1:30 p.m. MT/ TV: ESPN2). The Buffaloes have won the previous two games in the series by eight points combine.