Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Jake Mauff at Jacob.Mauff@colorado.edu.
The University of Colorado Buffaloes football team (4-5) was close in its game against UCLA last week, and will look to grab a win against the No. 9-ranked Stanford Cardinal (7-1) this Saturday.
Did Steve Young ever have the monkey put on his back? That’s what it feels like for the Buffs, who were leading in the fourth quarter and couldn’t eke out a victory last week. With nothing but Pac-12 matchups remaining, Colorado has to find some answers.
Hopefully, they have one answer on offense: the run game. Freshman running back Patrick Carr had a breakout game against the Bruins. On the season, he has 212 yards and a touchdown. One hundred of those yards came last week, at 5.3 a carry.
Colorado had 242 yards on the ground last week. This helped them stay on the field for an overwhelming majority of the game — 41:05. This kind of play wore out UCLA’s defense while keeping its offense off the field. The Buffs will have to play like this if they want to keep up with the Cardinal.
The UCLA game will be hard to replicate. Stanford is ranked first in the NCAA in time of possession, but it has a somewhat stagnate passing game. The team is averaging 215.1 yards a game, which is 77th in the nation.
Stanford has a good ground game, which is why the team is leading in time of possession. As a team, the Cardinal are averaging more rushing yards than passing yards, at 221.8 yards a game.
This ground game is spearheaded by sophomore running back Christian McCaffrey, whose work has put him in contention for the Heisman Trophy. He has 1,060 yards this season to go along with six touchdowns.
McCaffrey is also leading the team with 25 catches for 310 yards and two touchdowns. He also returns kicks. This kid can do it all, which is a problem for Colorado. They will have to find some way to contain McCaffrey, which is something that hasn’t been done all season.
The Buffs have the nation’s 102nd-ranked run defense. Expect McCaffrey to expand his Heisman candidacy this week.
“Everything is set up off the run game,” junior linebacker Kenneth Olugbode said. “We have to stop the run.”
Colorado may have to watch out for another member of the Stanford offense. Fifth-year senior quarterback Kevin Hogan ran for 112 yards last week, more than McCaffrey. He also had two touchdowns on the ground.
“Hogan can really run,” head coach Mike MacIntyre said. “The thing that he does really well is he understands where he’s supposed to go with the football. I assume they’ll run him against us because we had a little problem stopping a running quarterback in one of our games.”
Stanford is ranked 39th in total defense. This is well above Colorado’s 90th rank, and the Buffs’ offense has a lot it needs to worry about.
The matchup this weekend seems one-sided, but so did the game last week, and Colorado made a game out of it. This team is improving, and people are starting to notice.
For perspective, there was a 19.5-point spread for UCLA going into the game last week. There’s a 16-point spread for Stanford going into the game this week. Stanford is ranked 15 places higher than UCLA was. It doesn’t seem like much, but that marks improvement on Colorado’s end.
There is more good news for Colorado. The Buffs will also be playing with sophomore wide receiver Shay Fields, who injured his ankle a few weeks back. He was limited last week, catching four passes for 39 yards.
This week, he’ll hopefully be more up to speed and see more game time.
“Shay Fields is a really great receiver,” Liufau stated. “To have him out there as another weapon to use against the defense (is a great feeling).”
The Stanford game this Saturday will be held at Folsom Field. Kickoff is scheduled for 11 a.m. and can be seen on Pac-12 Network.
