Colorado’s stars led the Buffaloes to a season-opening victory over North Dakota State on Thursday night.
The Buffaloes defeated the FCS powerhouse Bison 31-26 as QB Shedeur Sanders threw for 445 yards while CB/WR Travis Hunter played nearly the entire game again and had seven receptions for 132 yards and three touchdowns.
Hunter’s final two touchdowns of the game were the decisive ones. He caught a 13-yard touchdown from Sanders midway through the third quarter to give the Buffs a 24-20 lead. And then he made an incredible catch midway through the fourth quarter to put Colorado up by two scores.
Hunter is perhaps the most dynamic player in college football. No one plays both ends of the ball like he does and no one relies on Hunter to do as much as Colorado does. The former five-star recruit is so good at both positions that he could be a first-round pick if he played with one unit.
After North Dakota State’s Cam Miller cut Colorado’s lead to five points with 2:19 left, the Buffaloes needed a first down to put the game away. They nearly didn’t get it, but North Dakota State committed a pass interference penalty on third down that effectively ended the game.
Or at least it should have. Colorado inexplicably threw the ball away on the next play, even though NDSU had just one timeout remaining. The pass was incomplete, and that meant the Bison got the ball back with less than 40 seconds left, for a desperate drive that ended with a desperation pass that was caught just five yards from the end zone.
There are still many questions for Colorado
This wasn’t a win that would make Colorado think it’s going to sweep the Big 12 in 2024. After a 3-0 start in 2023, Colorado looked like it was going to be a player in the Pac-12. And it subsequently went 4-8 and won just one conference game.
On Thursday night, Colorado’s defense took a beating in the first half and the running game struggled again. Oh, and the coach’s decision to have Sanders throw the ball after the pass interference penalty with less than two minutes left was also awful.
Deion Sanders’ top priority in the transfer portal this offseason was upgrading the offensive line. Shedeur was sacked more than 50 times in 2023 and the running game averaged just 2.3 yards per carry. The Buffaloes added a slew of transfers and five-star rookie Jordan Seaton ahead of 2024, but it’s clear the line is still a work in progress.
Colorado ran 23 times for just 59 yards against North Dakota State. Yes, the Bison have been incredible at the second level of college football over the past decade and have a program that would be a perennial bowl team at the FBS level. But Colorado averaged just 2.6 yards per carry and the longest run of the night for the Buffaloes was 11 yards.
The lack of a ground game puts too much pressure on Shedeur Sanders’ shoulders. Yes, he threw for 445 yards on just 34 pass attempts. But Hunter and Jimmy Horn (seven receptions for 198 yards and a touchdown) aren’t going to have that advantage every week. Especially against Big 12 teams if the Buffaloes can’t run the ball.
Next week’s game against Nebraska will be a much better test for the Buffaloes. Yes, they’ll be facing a rookie quarterback in Dylan Raiola, but Nebraska should be much better than it has been in recent seasons. And the crowd in Lincoln is sure to be rowdy. It’s great that Colorado avoided an embarrassing loss on Thursday night. But Sanders and Hunter can’t bail them out all season, either.
