The Buffs won on Saturday against a ranked opponent for the first time this season. It was the 2nd win over a ranked opponent under the Deion Sanders regime, and the first since last year’s season opener against TCU. It was much needed particularly as the Buffs now enter the bye week in position to fight for bowl eligibility. Without further talk, let’s dive into overall scheme/game thoughts, offensive notes, and defensive notes.
Overall Game and Coaching Notes
–CU has the least intimidating coin toss captains I’ve ever seen. For every pregame coin toss, the CU players at midfield are punter Damon Greaves, kicker Boomin’ Buck Buchanan, and kicker Alejandro “Auto-Mata” Mata. Rawr!
Hopefully this doesn’t turn into a pregame brawl like the CU vs. Miami game in 1993.
–CU’s in-game coaching remains a mess. There are many different examples that can be cited every game. One example from yesterday? Not using a timeout with 53 seconds left in the first half when Iowa State had the ball at CU’s 1 yard line. After the Iowa State touchdown, CU returned the subsequent kickoff to the CU 42-yard line but only had 14 seconds left to try to get into field goal range. These (and similar) issues have occurred over-and-over under this coaching regime. The Ringer’s Bill Simmons has joked that teams should hire 14 year-olds that play Madden 24/7 to help with clock and game management. God knows it couldn’t hurt Deion Sanders.
— Rob Livingston’s insistence on playing nickel defense against running teams is going to make my head explode. Nickelback Preston Hodge is not tackling well enough to play against teams that are intentionally exploiting him in the run game. Yesterday, Hodge had a PFF tackling grade of 20.8. No, that’s not a typo. CU should play a 5-2 with an extra interior defensive lineman against teams like Iowa State (not to mention Georgia Tech and Houston). If a team can’t stop the run, it won’t win. Period.
–I’ve seen hot takes on all sides regarding the “rushing the field” debate. While I’m not a big fan of rushing the field (for reasons why, see the next bullet point), I’m also old. My thought? Give students one “freebie” field rush. After that, if students rush the field, they should pay the resulting fine. How do they pay for it? I don’t know — maybe increase student ticket prices by the proportionate share of the fine. I figure that if students want to rush the field and are willing to pay for it, then let them….however…..
–After the game, Iowa State wide receiver (and former CU Buff) Chase Sowell shoved a CU student that had rushed the field. The student fell hard to the ground. Sowell then tried to kick the student while he was on the ground. I know that folks near me in Section 104 had video of the incident. I hope that Iowa State AD Jamie Pollard and Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell see film of the incident. If so, I expect that there could be severe repercussions for Sowell. [Edit: Video popped up online on Sunday showing the CU student was a knucklehead and trying to wrestle Sowell’s helmet away from him. After viewing the film, Sowell doesn’t need to worry about a thing.]
(John, while elbowing the wife: “Omarrion Miller is wide open! Hopefully Salter sees him!”
Offensive Notes and Analysis
-Kaidon Salter bounced back nicely after a rough outing at TCU last week. Salter finished the game 16 of 25 for 255 yards and 2 TDs. Salter also had 57 net rushing yards on Saturday. He finished the game with CU’s highest PFF grade on the day, finishing with a 90.6 PFF grade. Joseph Williams had 8 receptions for 128 yards and a TD and finished the game with a monstrous 89.8 PFF grade. Williams played almost exclusively in the slot against Iowa State. This is a relatively new development for the offense, and is due to the fact that Dre’lon Miller, who has played in the slot for the majority of the season, was out on Saturday and has been moved to running back. I expect that we’ll continue to see Williams operating more and more in the slot. Omarrion Miller also had a nice game, finishing with 4 receptions on 3 targets, including a 70 yard TD reception on the first play of the third quarter.
–CU’s offensive line didn’t play particularly well on Saturday. The only 2 linemen that had above-average PFF scores were Jordan Seaton (73.9) and Xavier Hill (61.7).
–Are CU’s coaches always playing the best players? It’s a fair question to ask, particularly at running back, where Dallan Hayden has showed that he (and Simeon Price if healthy) is CU’s best running back. Hayden finished the game with 12 carries for 59 yards and a TD. Hayden has played only 44 snaps this season (in comparison to Micah Welch’s 85 snaps), averages 5.6 yards per carry (as opposed to Welch’s 4.3), averages 4.09 yards after contact (in comparison to Welch’s 2.90), and has a higher percentage of breakaway runs. Going forward, I hope we see much more of Hayden.
–Zach Atkins continues to really struggle at tight end. His inability to run block is a detriment to the running game and is a key reason why CU has been forced to use 330+ pound Yahya Attia at tight end. For the record, watching Attia crush a linebacker when running across the formation on a kick-out block is my favorite thing to watch on this year’s CU team.
Kaidon Salter: “Don’t worry, John, I got you…..”
Defensive Notes and Analysis
–Defensively, Tawfiq Byard is far-and-away CU’s best player. He’s tackling well, particularly when compared to the majority of his teammates. He finished the game with 7 tackles and a massive interception near the CU goal line. Byard was targeted four times in the passing game, giving up 2 receptions for only 19 yards.
–Other standouts on Saturday included freshman defensive end London Merritt, who finished the game with a 73 PFF grade, and Ivan Yates, who finished with a 72.1 PFF grade. Yates, a former walk-on, made his season debut, had 5 tackles, and played 52 snaps on Saturday. Yates’ small frame offered some comical visuals when he was matched up against 6’3” wide receiver Chase Sowell and 6’5” wide receiver Dominic Overby. Yates was targeted 4 times in the game, also giving up only 2 completions for 19 yards.
–Jeremiah Brown was CU’s leading tackler, finishing with 10 total tackles. I was still underwhelmed with his performance, however. He finished with a 56.1 PFF grade.
–I have been critical of Brandon Davis-Swain this season. On Saturday, however, BDS had his best game as a Buff. He finished with one tackle, a batted ball and a 66.7 PFF grade. He and Amari McNeill played well in the 2nd half. This is notable because they both played a lot of snaps on Saturday because CU didn’t have the luxury of rotating defensive tackles regularly throughout the game given injury issues at the position.
–For the record, I am still utterly confused why Jeheim Oatis isn’t getting more playing time. Oatis has played very well when he’s played (he had only 5 snaps on Saturday). PFF agrees with my eyeball test, as he’s currently CU’s 2nd highest graded defensive tackle this season behind McNeill. It sure looks like the coaches are ignoring his production.
If you want to read more from the BuffsBlog blogosphere, check out this piece on Deion Sanders, Chuck Norris, and a Teutonic knight:
Great stuff. My favorite CU site. Thanks John for all your efforts.
Thanks Dave – appreciate the kind word. Thanks for spreading the word about the site.
I didn’t see Sowell kick the kid, but others in my section saw it and commented on it too. That’s terrible and I hope the powers-that-be take action.
It also shows why rushing the field can be dangerous as players still have a lot of emotion right after the game. Not excusing what Sowell did, but just showing how things can get out of hand.
There was also a video of a student getting hit by the goal post coming down. Which is impressively stupid for a lot of reasons. 1) you know it’s a collapsible goaltpost 2) there’s like ten dudes there trying to bring it down 3) they bring it down super fast so the guy had to go out of his way to get there as fast as possible to get hit by it