BOULDER — Colorado took care of business Friday as the Buffaloes rolled to a 52-0 win over Oklahoma State in their regular season finale at Folsom Field.
Now the Buffs must wait for Saturday’s Big 12 games to see if they advance to next week’s conference championship game in Arlington, Texas.
Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders’ Buffs improved to 9-3 overall and 7-2 in Big 12 play with the win while the Cowboys ended their season with their ninth straight loss to finish 3-9, 0-9.
Colorado’s path to the Big 12 title game still requires help from a couple of other teams in the conference, but the Buffs clearly took care of their end of the deal Friday.
CU rolled to a 21-0 lead after the first quarter, increased the cushion to 38-0 by the end of the third quarter and then put the finishing touches on the rout with 14 more points in the final period.
The Buffs were dominant in every phase — especially on defense. Colorado bounced back from a tough showing last week at Kansas to throttle the Cowboys, forcing four turnovers that led to 28 points. Three of the takeaways came inside the OSU 30-yard line, with Colorado converting each into a touchdown.
The fourth didn’t need any help from the offense as DJ McKinney picked off an OSU pass and returned it 14 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter.
Offensively, the Buffs were efficient and effective. Quarterback Shedeur Sanders, who was announced as the winner of the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award on Friday, finished 34-for-41 for 438 yards and five touchdowns.
Three of those scoring passes went to two-way star Travis Hunter, who solidified his Heisman Trophy bid with 10 catches for 116 yards and three touchdowns, along with an interception and two pass breakups on defense. Wide receiver LaJohntay Wester, meanwhile, had his best day as a Buff with 11 receptions for 175 yards and two scores.
CU outgained the Cowboys 471-147, with the bulk of OSU’s yardage coming on the last possession of the game. The Buffs were 5-for-12 on third down while holding Oklahoma State to 3-for-15 and Colorado racked up 26 first downs to OSU’s 10.
Perhaps the only blemish on CU’s day were the six sacks by Oklahoma State, but that had no bearing on the final outcome as the Buffs dominated from beginning to end.
The game proved to be exactly the type of performance Coach Prime wanted after last week’s disappointing loss at Kansas.
“That was a phenomenal finish defensively,” Coach Prime said. “That’s indicative of who we are in how we play the game of football. Both coordinators, Rob (Livingston) and Pat Shurmur, these guys are so darn good. They’ve been so consistent through the year. They’ve exceeded all expectations. We’ve exceeded all expectations, and I’m really happy where we are. We certainly wanted to take that one extra step last week, and we fell short. But look how we rebounded. Look how we wiped our tears and got back up, got on the horse and yelled, giddy up. And I’m proud of our young men.”
The game marked the end of an era for Coach Prime and his sons, Shedeur and Shilo, as it was almost certainly their last game together at Folsom Field. He has coached them both since they were youngsters and now they will head to the NFL while he stays in Boulder and continues to turn the Colorado program into a national contender.
“It didn’t hit me until the end of the game that that was the last time here that Shedeur and Shilo and Bucky (Deion Jr.) will enjoy that moment with the four of us together,” he said. “That was a wonderful moment.”
But Coach Prime said he won’t be watching Saturday’s Big 12 games to see if the Buffs advance to the conference title game.
“I’m not wanting to go home and watch TV and wish somebody loses,” he said. “I don’t get down like that.”
HOW IT HAPPENED: Colorado’s defense set the stage for a big first quarter, collecting two takeaways — a Hunter interception and a Shilo Sanders fumble recovery — that set up a pair of Buffs touchdowns.
Hunter’s interception, his fourth of the season, came on the third play of the game and gave CU’s offense possession on the OSU 24-yard line.
Three plays later, Micah Welch hammered in from the 1-yard line to give CU a 7-0 lead.
CU’s defense then delivered a three-and-out stop on its next possession and the Colorado offense produced its longest drive of the half. Quarterback Shedeur Sanders completed five passes on a 65-yard drive, including a 10-yard scoring toss to Wester to give CU a 14-0 lead with 3:47 still to go in the first quarter.
OSU then continued to hand the Buffs opportunity on a silver platter. Colorado’s Carter Stoutmire forced a fumble and Shilo Sanders recovered at the Oklahoma State 28.
Shedeur Sanders then completed three passes in a row, wrapping up a 28-yard scoring drive with an 11-yard touchdown toss to Hunter for a 21-0 Colorado lead with 2:09 still left in the first quarter.
“That’s what the plan was last week, to jump on them early, to try to make them understand who we are and who they are,” Coach Prime said. “It didn’t happen that way. We made note of that, and we focused on that all through the meetings, as well as all through practice sessions and our pregame speech. We made note of all that so that we could have our business early on, because when we score early and the defense gord three and out, then it’s hard to deal with us.”
But the Buffs offense went into stall mode in the second quarter. CU’s defense continued to throttle the Cowboys, but the offense saw its next three possessions end in punts before the fourth came to an end after three straight sacks and an incompletion in OSU territory.
Colorado then had two more chances with the ball before halftime but neither produced points and the Buffs headed to the locker room with a 21-0 lead at the break after giving up five first-half sacks.
That led to halftime conversation between Coach Prime and Shedeur and the result was the offense finding its groove again to open the third quarter.
“Dad sat me down, had a talk,” Shedeur said. “That was just like, a come to Jesus meeting … That was kind of a reset. It reset for us and then we were able to go out and continue to put up points, put up numbers.”
Indeed, the Buffs needed just three plays to put together a 75-yard scoring drive to open the second half. After a short run and incompletion, Sanders threw a short pass to Wester on the sideline and the CU receiver raced 69 yards untouched to the end zone for a 28-0 lead.
The Cowboys then continued their self-destruct mode on their next possession. CU’s Chidozie Nwanko recovered a fumble at the OSU 25-yard line and the Buffs notched their fifth touchdown of the day four plays later. Sanders and Hunter connected for their second touchdown of the day, an 8-yard strike that gave Colorado a 35-0 lead less than five minutes into the second half.
The Buffs weren’t finished, adding a field goal, McKinney’s interception return for a score and the third Sanders-to-Hunter touchdown connection of the game to complete the scoring.
TURNING POINT: This one was over early. When Hunter recorded his early interception and the Buffs scored three plays later, CU had momentum that would never find the OSU sidelines.
WHAT IT MEANS: The Buffs must now wait for Saturday’s Big 12 games to see if they will advance to the conference championship game or simply wait for their bowl assignment.
NEXT UP: The Buffs will now wait for the rest of the weekend’s Big 12 games to see if they earn a spot in next weekend’s conference championship game in Arlington, Texas. The Buffs need either losses by two of these three — Arizona State, BYU or Iowa State — or a loss by BYU and a win by Texas Tech to advance.
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Story by Neill Woelk, Contributing Editor for CUBuffs.com. Content courtesy of the University of Colorado at Boulder.