Sizing Up Colorado
When you look at the season the Buffaloes have had, you see a team that frequently comes up short. Four of their losses are by less than a touchdown. Scanning the depth chart, it's the same story. They come up a bit short.
The Buffaloes have a offensive line that's a little smallish by Big XII standards, starting wide receivers that aren't especially big, smallish running backs and a six-foot quarterback. The defensive line is undersized and the starting defensive backs all go under six feet.
The Buffs run defense has been good this season, but their size would lead you to believe that you could run the ball against them. The Buffs are also one of the few two-win teams you'll find that have a positive turnover margin - tied for second in the conference with Nebraska. The Buffs defense is average by conference standards in terms of statistics, but given how poor their offense is (dead last in passing offense, pass efficiency, total offense, and scoring offense) they would have to be above average just to stay in the middle of the pack defensively. They are also dead last in the Big XII in punt returns (that involves blocking, after all) and 7th in net punting. So if the Buffs play well on defense, you'd expect to gain field position by trading punts.
Two schools of thought here, one is for the Huskers to run the ball against a fairly tough defense (punting as often as necessary) to protect Taylor for the Big XII championship game and to reduce the risk of sacks or turnovers. The other thought would be that if their defense is weaker against the pass, then attack that weakness. It will be Zac's last game in Lincoln, so it would also be nice to send him out on a high note. It's a big recruiting weekend so it might be helpful to get a pretty win for all the recruits. It's a risk/reward thing. It's probably not bad to attack their weakness and is probably the best chance for a big win, but then losing Zac or losing the game on interceptions would certainly be tough to deal with.
The oddsmakers call the Huskers a 15-point favorite and Sagarin's predictor ratings say the Huskers should win by 19. Anything less than two scores would be a mild upset for Colorado (even given the history of close games in this series). We haven't seen a CU team this bad in a long time. "Bowl game" or not for the Buffs, I don't like their chances in Lincoln. NU 31-13.
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