Buffs run wild on Cougars
The Buffaloes rushed, and the crowd at Folsom Field followed.
Behind a lethal rushing attack that accumulated 249 yards and five touchdowns, the Colorado Buffaloes upset the No. 14 Houston Cougars 42-32 on Friday night.
“We ran the heck out of the ball,” said Colorado head coach Deion Sanders after the upset victory. “We had been capable of this all season long, we just hadn't put it together.”
It wasn't all smooth; the CU defense struggled to contain Houston's high-powered offense in the first quarter, but Colorado's consistent rushing attack kept things at bay.
The run game then took over in the second quarter; three different halfbacks each touched paydirt.
Down 10 in the first minutes of the second quarter, running back Richard Young put the Buffs on the board after a patient scamper ended in the back of the end zone.
With less than two minutes left in the first half, Dekalon Taylor took his only carry of the game 67 yards into the end zone to bring the score to 20-14 in favor of the Cougars.
The Colorado defense came up with a quick stop to put the ball back in the hands of the offense before the half ended.
Running back JaQuail Smith then rushed the ball 31 yards into the end zone to put the Buffs up by one right before halftime. The run caught the Cougars' defense off guard, and Smith made them pay. Smith had yet another effective game on the ground as he rushed for 44 yards on six carries.
“When one person eats, we all eat…We all feed off of each other, ” Young said.
The backs continued to feast in the second half.
The rushing attack continued to push the offense downfield, while also effectively draining the game clock.
“Those guys are ballers,” Buffs wide receiver Joseph Willias said of the running back room. “Every time they run the ball, they finish through the endzone.”
Quarterback Isaac Wilson also contributed 25 yards on eight carries, but more importantly, because of his success at picking up first downs on the ground, Houston had to worry about yet another branch of the run game.
The Colorado offense ran various option plays where Wilson could take the ball himself, or hand it off. Because of Wilson's threat on the ground, the Cougars' defense often bit on the wrong read.
With less than six minutes remaining in the third quarter, the Buffs had a chance to extend their lead to 15 after some heroic stops by the defense and a Williams touchdown catch-and-run.
Wilson led an 11-play drive that stormed into Houston’s red zone. The starting quarterback was injured on a play, and true freshman backup Kaneal Sweetwyne entered the game and proved to be yet another extension of the run game.
On his first snap at the helm, Sweetwyne dashed towards the left pylon from 14 yards out to add yet another touchdown on the ground for Brennan Marion's “Go-Go” offense.
The defense continued to hold its own, and on the other side of the ball, the run game did the same.
Throughout the season, Marion's offense has often given the most carries to the back with the “hot hand.”
Against Houston, Young's hand was on fire.
Up nine with just under four minutes left in the bout, Young once again found the end zone. From two yards out, the back powered his way through bodies to find paydirt in a crucial time. The touchdown effectively put the game out of reach as Houston had been trying to mount a comeback.
The score capped off a career day for Young, who finished with 21 carries for 99 yards and two scores.
On the final meaningful play from scrimmage, Young iced the game with a 10-yard scamper that was only halted by his own slide.
Colorado averaged 6.4 yards per carry, well above its season average of 3.6, while nearly doubling its usual 130 rushing yards per game. Four unique carriers found the end zone, a feat no Buffs fan thought was possible under the Sanders regime.
For an offense that had struggled to consistently establish its ground game throughout the season, Friday night was a glimpse of what the "Go-Go" offense can be capable of.
And after watching the Buffaloes run all over the field for four quarters, the fans got their turn.
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