Contact CU Independent Copy Editor Jake Mauff at jacob.mauff@colorado.edu.
The Colorado Buffaloes (2-0) are gearing up to travel to the Big House and play the No. 4 ranked Michigan Wolverines (2-0). In what is easily the toughest matchup the Buffs have faced to date, a team effort will be needed to defeat the national title contenders. Here’s a comparison between the two squads.
Offense:
Colorado has been fairly efficient on offense this year. Their new offensive tempo may have played into this. Consistency in the running game has also been vital to the Buffs’ success. Although it is still early in the season, every runner has his clearly defined roles. Junior tailback Phillip Lindsay has earned the bell cow role and has mostly produced as such.
Sophomore running back Kyle Evans has earned more carries the longer the game has gone on. Most of his carries have come in with the score clearly tipped in Colorado’s favor. If he can continue to produce like he did in the Rocky Mountain Showdown, where Evans ran for over five yards a carry and scored a touchdown, more scores should come his way.
This should play into Colorado’s favor, as a healthy run game stymied Michigan last week. Central Florida came with a smash mouth game plan. The result: 46 carries for 275 yards and two scores. The Knights were able to gain six yards a carry against Michigan. That’s no small feat.
Defense:
The Wolverines’ quarterback dilemma has sorted itself out. Junior quarterback Wilton Speight has played solidly thus far this season. Michigan now has to sort out the running game.
In two games, the Wolverines had very different results when they handed off the ball. Against Hawaii in the first week, Michigan had 306 yards. They only had 39 carries. The next week, against the Knights, the Wolverines only had 119 yards. That’s not an awful performance, until you hear that there were 41 carries involved.
Speight has played well enough to help the run game in both situations. However, Michigan hasn’t played a defense like Colorado’s yet. The Buffs are, statistically, the best defense in the country going into week three. This is likely to change this week, but Colorado has been doing well enough against the run and the pass.
Colorado hasn’t faced a team like Michigan yet, so being effective against both will be more important. The team is allowing four yards per rush, so it seems a performance akin to Hawaii seems more likely than a UCF outing. If Colorado can keep the running game in check, Speight will have to take a bigger role in the offense. That could spell trouble for Michigan.
Mental:
Perhaps the biggest factor about this game doesn’t come on the field. Colorado has only played in the state of Colorado so far. One of the team’s games was in Denver in what was considered neutral grounds, but there were still many Buffs fans in attendance.
Sports Authority Field is certainly a big venue. Nothing can prepare a team for the Big House itself. Boisterous opposing crowds will drown out any sound Colorado has to make at the line of scrimmage. How the offense adjusts will be important to the Buffs’ success.
This is especially true considering the offense no-huddle approach. If there needs to be a change, it’ll be a lot harder, if not impossible, to implement.
