Colorado Spring Game

I got bored this week and went down the rabbit hole of watching the Colorado spring game. With the Buffs turning over the roster again this year (even though we were told they were bringing in studs last year) I was curious how things looked. Further, they have new coordinators from a year ago, so I wanted to see if I noticed any major differences.

Coach Prime in Boulder is trying to build this team with everything I hate about college football nowadays. His “get good quick” scheme by neglecting the high school recruits and just grabbing a ton of guys in the portal helped him to a 4-8 record last year. They had zero depth, and are again revamping things. Conversely, Coach Rhule is building the exact opposite. Taking massive high school classes to develop players, and fitting portal pieces in where he sees fit. CU had the most departures this spring, while Nebraska had the fewest:

College Football Transfer Portal: Power Conference programs with most/least departures during 2023-24 cycle, Ranked;

Most Departures:
1. Colorado – 41
2t. Indiana 39
2t. Michigan State 39
2t. Alabama – 39
5. Houston – 33
6t. Cincinnati – 32
6t. Georgia Tech – 32
8t.… pic.twitter.com/yYVS39ITpZ

— Cʜᴜᴄᴋ ᴅᴏᴜɢʟᴀs ✪ (@ChuckDouglas_) May 10, 2024

It’s important to remember Colorado brought in a ton of new guys that are just getting here this summer as well, so what I saw in the spring game may not be the personnel being used. Further, i’m well aware they more than likely just kept things vanilla and didn’t try to do a ton. For example, they were mostly 4 WR with a RB, but the RB was a WR that they had play RB. We all know that the QB and WRs will be great for Colorado, Sanders, Hunter, and Horn Jr back make them pretty poten along with 2 stud transfers at that position make them pretty potent. The real issue is they lost almost all of their TEs and their line was so bad last year they just went complete overhaul again. They are bringing some more bodies in this summer, but it was bad during their spring game.

I will do a deeper dive into what Colorado has from a personnel standpoint later, but for their offense, they start the 5 star true freshman at LT. Their LG was ineligibly last year and was an All-American at Jackson State. Their C is from Colorado, their RG is a transfer in from UTEP. And their RT is I believe their best linemen in a transfer from Indiana who started for the Hoosiers. He will be their bright spot IMO.

Let’s dive into what I saw in the first series, because again it was vanilla, so no need to analyze too much. Let’s just stay 30,000 foot view…

First play of the spring game, a 5 wide formation (RB motioned out of the backfield to go no backs). It also highlighted what Colorado is going to hope for. The corners stayed up about 5 yards off the outside WRs, but the Buffaloes new defensive coordinator is in a very vanilla 2-high safety look with the LBs slightly moved out. This is an easy read for Sanders to get the ball out of his hands quickly to a slot WR or the RB in the slot that motioned there who will just run a quick stick route because that’s what the defense is giving them.

That play right there is what I am hoping Nebraska can avoid. If DC White is able to have faith in our DBs and LBs to play tight on the receivers, our DL will have a field day. But if Sanders is able to just catch the shotgun snap and throw, it will be troublesome. Guys like Javin Wright who is a very athletic LB and maybe someone like Gage Stenger who moved from safety, or even a Genatone who is athletic at LB can help not let happen what you just watched. Which leads me to the next play of what i’m hoping to see.

Colorado leaves the RB in this time to at least give a fighting chance of a run play, so Colorado’s defense (again very vanilla) leaves their 2 LBs in the box and drop a safety down to cover the slot WR who is playing up on the WRs. You’ll notice the Buffs DBs on the top of your screen up on the WRs, and on the bottom they are playing up as well. This means Sanders has to hold the ball longer so that the WRs can get past the tight coverage. As you can see, it doesn’t go well, and the Buffs prized five star LT gets blown by instantly for a sack since Sanders couldn’t just catch, step and throw.

That happened pretty much all game. And the interior of the line was getting pushed back into the lap of Sanders all game as well. Watch the right DT facing the LG, he hesitates then pushes his guy right into the QB. But let’s not get it twisted, while Sanders had someone get pushed right into him, he’s a first-round NFL talent with his arm and still makes the throw here:

Keep in mind that is all with a 4 man rush. Do you think Hutmacher and Robinson are better than their interior DL? Do we think Umanmiellen, Butler, Lenhardt, Wallin, Williams are better at rushing the edges than their guys? I mean, DL is probably one of our biggest strengths on the entire roster for the Huskers. The Buffs OL is going against a DL that is not even close to what we have, so those last 2 plays got me pretty excited.

So what Colorado tried to do to slow down the pass rush is bring in an H-back to chip on the edge rushers before going out for a pass as well as leave a RB in for added protection, or again make it seem like they would run. And keep in mind all of the protection issues i’m showing you are against a 4 man rush. The Buffs didn’t have to bring added players or do any games with blitzes, stunts, or twists. They just got beat 4 DL vs 5 OL. So now what happens when Colorado brings in the H-back and leaves a RB in while Colorado brings a blitz?

Sanders has to get rid of the ball so quickly because the blitz got there almost instantly, and the top outside pass rusher beat the RT. Now, for transparency, Colorado was so thin at RB that was a WR playing there for most of the game alongside Sanders, but the point remains that whether it be pressing the WRs outside with our DBs or bringing pressure to get to Sanders, that is what will get us to win this game from a defensive standpoint. It happened pretty much the whole time I watched their game, the defense was getting pressure and the only time there were completions was if the DBs were playing softer coverage.

Now you heard the announcer in the above video talk about a QBs best friend is a running game. Colorado tried this, and their stats look much better due to a long run or two that they broke off. I’m not saying don’t count those, they count. But for the most part, this is what happened even when bringing in 2 TEs to help:

That was 7 blockers vs a 6 man box with a RB and QB read play. Their offensive line is just so bad that it makes them extremely one-dimensional at best. If our DL can control them like the Buffs DL did, it will be a long day because White can play enough games on the backend to make Sanders confused. Last year our defense was able to do this for 2.5 quarters but then ran out of gas. If you remember, there was like 8 plays that resulted in 2 turnovers and punts or whatever from Sims. If we can control the ball like I think we can, there is no reason for us to not cover the -6.5 that Vegas has us as favorites.

I didn’t go too much into their defense. Their WRs and QBs are great, their RBs aren’t better than last year, and their TEs and OL are downgrades from 2023. They are trying to build outside in and i’m not sure it’s going to work. At one point, they just scrapped the 11v11 in the spring game and moved to 7v7. I’m pretty sure that was planned, but that lets you know just how bad their depth is and how little they get done in practice. Further, you could see in the game they were “tagging off”. If you remember, Rhule got a lot of talk his first season because Frost was just having our team “tag off” in practices, and Rhule actually had us tackling. Our defense improved tremendously first year doing it.

I’m trying to figure out if I should do a “better or worse” for each position with them since we didn’t get a ton on the other side of the ball. I’m obsessed with Colorado right now because of all the hype they get, and I just want to know what to think and then re-examine it once they play North Dakota State.