Playing in front of 52,265 fans at Folsom Field and a national television audience on ESPN on Saturday night, the Colorado football team had the opportunity for a signature moment.
Instead, it was an all-too-familiar result for the Buffaloes, who fell to No. 25 BYU, 24-21. It was the Buffs’ eighth consecutive loss to a ranked opponent.
“Sometimes it felt like the moment was just too big for some of our athletes, and they got to do something about that,” head coach Deion Sanders said.
CU has to do something about it in a hurry, because the moments get bigger going forward. At 2-3 (0-2 Big 12), CU faces a tough road ahead.
On Saturday, the Buffs will visit TCU (3-1, 1-1), which was No. 24 before a Friday night loss that dropped it out of the rankings. That’s followed by a home date with No. 14 Iowa State (5-0, 2-0) and a trip to Utah (4-1, 1-1), which is just outside of the top 25.
So far this season, the Buffs have defeated overmatched Delaware and Wyoming, but fumbled their best opportunities to come up with big wins.
In the opener, the Buffs were tied with Georgia Tech until the final moments, falling 27-20. Tech was unranked but is now 5-0 and ranked No. 17.
In Week 3, the Buffs, in the midst of a quarterback shuffle, were pushed around by upstart Houston in the Big 12 opener on the road, losing 36-20. Houston, which was 4-8 the previous two years, is now 4-0.
And on Saturday, the Buffs jumped to a 14-0 lead, led 21-17 going into the fourth quarter and never trailed by more than three but never could come up with the big plays needed to win.
Two second half situations, in particular, stood out.
Leading 21-17 late in third quarter, CU forced BYU into a third-and-17. BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier got loose and ran for 16 yards, setting up a fourth-and-1 near midfield. BYU easily converted the fourth down to keep the drive alive and three plays later scored what turned out to be the winning touchdown.
“That play is killing me right now,” safety Tawfiq Byard said, shaking his head. “We get them in third-and-long, a place you want to be, and we give up.”
Still, CU wasn’t out of it.
Three plays later, the Buffs’ Kaidon Salter broke loose for a 45-yard run to the BYU 21-yard line that would have put the Buffs in position to tie the game or take the lead. That play was wiped out by a holding penalty, however. On the next play, Salter didn’t see two wide open receivers in front of him and took a 22-yard sack.
That two-play sequence cost the Buffs 69 yards and, perhaps, the game. Had that sequence gone better, Sanders said, “We may be sitting up here in a different mood.”
Instead, the Buffs find themselves in a tough spot heading into October. For CU to turn its season around, it has to figure out how to rise to the occasion in big moments, but is that fixable?
“We can try, but they gotta step up,” Sanders said. “I’m not gonna go make excuses for them. They gotta step up. They gotta step up. I don’t know what else I can say about it.
“We just got to step up. We got to make the plays that were there. We had tremendous opportunities to make the plays. We just didn’t.”
During his postgame press conference, Sanders put the loss on everyone, saying, “We’ve got to do better as a staff, as a team, and I got to do better.”
His most scathing remarks were pointed at the players, though.
“At halftime, we challenged certain positions to go out there and up their game, challenge their opponents. We didn’t get that,” he said. “We got the same thing that we had in the first half.”
Sanders said the Buffs’ performance on Saturday was similar to what coaches saw throughout the week.
“It’s nothing different than what I saw at practice, what we just saw in the game,” he said. “And I pray that these young men understand that practice is your prerequisite. That’s your preparation for how you’re going to perform.
“Gotta practice better, tremendously better at some positions. … We’ve got to get consistency from all positions.”
To start picking up wins, the Buffs have no choice, especially given the road ahead.
“We just gotta keep going and keep fighting,” Byard said.
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