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The Colorado Buffaloes offense made some big strides while the defense completely fell apart in a 56-31 loss to the Arizona Wildcats in Tucson. Wildcats sophomore running back Ka'Deem Carey set an Pac-12 record (as well as a rushing yards allowed record for Colorado) for rushing yards with 366 and 5 touchdowns as the Buffaloes allowed him to gallop through wide open rushing lanes all game long.
Team Stat Comparison
While the Arizona defense is bad, and everything we can glean from this game has to be taken with a grain of salt, there were a good amount of positives from the offense. Both Connor Wood and especially Nick Hirschman showed that they should have been starting for this team a lot earlier in this season. Hirshman finished 12 for 13 for 123 yards and one killer interception on a screen pass. He moved well in the pocket and made some great throws. Wood finished 4 for 5 with 90 yards and seemed much more in control of the offense than he had in previous work. Both of them seemed to make the receiving core look like a much more competent group than Jordan Webb had and gave us some hope on that side of the ball for the foreseeable future.
Both running backs ran hard and fast as they recreated some of their Upland magic (albeit it usually without both of them on the field as the same time) against a soft Arizona defense. Powell finished with 31 carries for 138 yards and 2 touchdowns while Donta Abron racked up 83 yards on 13 carries while having a 75-yard screen pass called back. Both of these guys are true freshmen running behind an extremely inconsistent offensive line. The future at running back is bright.
Then, there is the defense. The abysmal, pathetic defense. The performance doesn't deserve my time, so I'm not going to go into depth here, you can look at the stats for that. Something has to change and something has to change fast. Fundamentals are terrible. The linebackers have no idea what they are doing. Players are quitting. Greg Brown and probably multiple other coaches have to go. If not right now, then immediately after the season ends. That side of the ball is a complete disaster.
On to Washington I guess...