Colorado University Athletics
Woelk: Buffs Get First-Hand Look At Pac-12 Standard
November 07, 2015 | Football, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — All week long, Colorado's coaching staff called Stanford the best all-around team they've faced this season.
They were right — and if the Buffs are looking for a standard by which to measure themselves, they saw it Saturday afternoon in a team that methodically hammered out a 42-10 win over the Buffaloes.
The Cardinal are not fancy, not by any stretch of the imagination. But they are a big, physical and experienced team, and one that makes few mistakes.
"You want to be able to control the game like they did at times," CU head coach Mike MacIntyre said. "They're able to run it on third down and throw it. Their quarterback is so efficient at what he does. Their offensive line has stayed so healthy. You put those two combinations together and they're going to win a lot of football games."
Indeed, more than any other team the Buffs have faced this season, the Cardinal were able to dictate the tempo of the game. They dominated in third-down conversions, moving the chains on 10 of their 13 tries through the first three quarters — something MacIntyre called the biggest difference in the game.
But once again, the Buffs contributed to their own demise. They came away empty from a first-and-goal at the 3-yard line after a 71-yard interception return from Tedric Thompson, something MacIntyre called "the biggest disappointment of the game." They missed another scoring opportunity from the red zone when they missed a field goal, and were forced to settle for a field goal on another drive that reached inside the Stanford 10.
Defensively, they gave up a 43-yard touchdown play on third-and-18 play, gave up a 57-yard touchdown drive in the last 1:09 of the first half, and yielded a 47-yard touchdown run to the Cardinal on the first play after the Buffs had closed the deficit to 28-10 in the third quarter.
"Third and 18 and they score a touchdown?" MacIntyre said. "That can't happen. That's unacceptable."
But that's been the story for the Buffaloes this year. Once again, they made too many mistakes in a game in which they had no margin for error.
The final statistics were indicative of the game. The Cardinal had a 472-231 edge in total yards. They had the ball for 38 minutes, 16 minutes more than the Buffs — more than an entire quarter's worth of play.
But along with all the on-field statistical differences, perhaps the biggest gap between the two teams Saturday was simply this: experience.
When the game began, 13 of Stanford's 22 starters were seniors. The Buffs? A whopping five.
That difference was magnified in the trenches, where four of five Stanford's starting offensive linemen were seniors and two of their three defensive linemen were seniors.
The Cardinal offensive line dominated on the third-and-short situations and kept quarterback Kevin Hogan out of harm's way for much of the day. The defensive line — along with two junior linebackers and a senior Butkus Award semifinalist — kept CU's running game in check, limiting the Buffs to just 83 yards on the ground.
And Hogan efficiently managed the game, doing exactly what was necessary throughout the day.
"They're a physical football team — the most physical team we've played since I've been here," MacIntyre said.
And it's where the Buffs want to be. They want to grow up into that kind of team, the kind that can physically dominate opponents and wear them down. They want to be the team that throttles opponents on their third-down tries and one that exerts its will offensively.
They want to be a team that is starting a majority of seniors — but they have to grow up first. CU had one senior on its offensive line Saturday and one on its defensive line. Meanwhile, they had a pair of sophomore starters on the defensive line, a freshman at linebacker, a freshman right tackle, a sophomore running back, a sophomore wide receiver and a sophomore fullback.
"They're really old on offense," MacIntyre said. "That helps them be very successful."
Nobody in the CU locker room is making excuses. They've spent a season talking about being close. They've spent a season watching their mistakes make the difference, and although the gap was large on Saturday, they walked away believing they should have played the Cardinal closer.
"I'm tired of hearing people say that we're this close and if we had made this play or that play it would be different," safety Tedric Thompson said. "It's happening week after week. Everybody in that locker room is their own man and we need to come together as men and really figure it out."
Thompson and his teammates are frustrated because they can see the corner they're supposed to turn. They're making more plays than they did a year ago and they're closing the gap — and every time they get close to turning that corner, they hit a detour, often one that's self-inflicted.
But there's no way to accelerate experience, no way to turn sophomores into seniors overnight. That takes time.
All year, there have been glimpses of the potential this team holds, moments when the improvement is plainly visible — and then there are the moments when the growing pains are painfully evident.
With three games remaining, their only option is to continue the process. The Buffs aren't going to grow up overnight, but with every game they play, they do have the opportunity to eliminate one more mistake and add more positive plays.
"It's out of the coaches' hands at this point," Thompson said. "They are doing everything right, making the right calls and preparing us. We just need to buckle down as men and accomplish our goals, and then we can turn things around."
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
