A quarter of the way through the season, the Colorado Buffaloes are already facing a gut-check moment.
“You need to have a self-examination,” head coach Deion Sanders told his team in the locker room after a 36-20 loss at Houston Friday night.
Sanders, who also warned against pointing fingers, included himself among those who need to look in the mirror.
“I take full responsibility of the foolishness that went on out there,” Sanders said.
CU (1-2, 0-1 Big 12) will look to get back on track when Wyoming visits Folsom Field on Saturday (8:15 p.m., ESPN) in the final non-conference game of the season.
“We just gotta stay pushing,” quarterback Ryan Staub said. “We gotta lean on each other and just get back to work. Gotta get a win next week and just keep pushing, lean together.”
The Buffs are 13.5-point favorites against the Cowboys (2-1), who were thumped at home by Utah, 31-6, on Saturday. The Cowboys knocked off Akron and Northern Iowa in their first two games.
Losing at Houston wasn’t as big of an issue as how the Buffs lost. As Sanders told his team, they got their “butt kicked,” as they were beaten physically by a Houston team not known for its physicality.
Houston, which has dealt with injuries on the offensive line, including on Friday night, still dominated up front to rush for 209 yards.
Defensively, the Cougars controlled the line of scrimmage to hold CU to 96 rushing yards. Simeon Price busted loose for a 38-yard run and Staub had scrambles for 29 and 19 yards. On the other 20 rushing attempts, however, CU had 10 yards.
On the first play of the game, Micah Welch was tackled for a 2-yard loss and that set the tone.
“I feel as though we have the players with the ability to be physical and run the darn football,” Sanders said. “But we started off getting a TFL, I think on the first or second play of the darn game.”
Welch had a nice start to the season, leading the Buffs with 64 yards on 11 carries in the opener against Georgia Tech. In the last two games, he’s carried the ball 12 times for 12 yards.
Including three sacks, which are counted as rushing attempts, CU had no gain or negative yards on 11 of 23 rushing attempts, and 16 of 23 went for three yards or less. Ten of CU’s 23 rushing attempts against Houston came on first down plays and five ended with zero or negative yards.
“I thought we had a couple good runs, but we just … we weren’t putting ourselves in position to run the ball,” Staub said. “Just always kind of playing behind a little bit. We never got that established.”
Three games into the season, CU doesn’t have much established.
Sanders isn’t sure of his starting quarterback. The run game isn’t what the Buffs hoped it would be. The defense struggles to tackle and make enough plays to get off the field.
Yet, there’s plenty of season left, and the Buffs’ veterans are hoping to get the team together as they go forward.
“I would just say we just gotta lift each other up, keep everybody’s confidence up,” defensive back Preston Hodge said. “We still have a lot of games ahead of us. The season’s nowhere close to being over. Everybody just needs to keep their head up, and we just gotta keep pushing and stay together as we’re a brotherhood. That’s what wins games is that bond.”
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