By NEILL WOELK
@neilwoelk
BOULDER — It’s been awhile since the Colorado Buffaloes played a game with this kind of significance in Boulder.
It makes Saturday’s matchup between the No. 12 AP/No. 10 CFP Buffs (8-2 overall, 6-1 Pac-12) and No. 20/22 Washington State (8-2, 7-0) exponentially more interesting. It’s not only the first meeting between two ranked teams at Folsom Field since 2002, it’s also a meeting of the two Pac-12 division leaders, meaning whoever walks out of Folsom with a win will be one step closer to playing in the Pac-12 championship game.
Colorado leads the all-time series with the Cougars, holding a narrow 5-4 edge — but that includes just a 2-3 record in Boulder and a 1-2 record in Pac-12 play. CU’s only win over WSU since joining the conference came in 2012, when the Buffs rallied for a
35-34 win in Pullman.
Last year, the Cougars took a 27-3 win in Pullman when the Buffs played without the services of injured quarterback Sefo Liufau.
This year, WSU comes to Boulder riding the wave of Mike Leach’s Air Raid offense, an attack that boasts the Pac-12’s second-leading offense, (517.5 yards per game), leading pass offense (385.5), second-leading scoring offense (44.3 points per game) and leading quarterback (Luke Falk). The Cougars are averaging more than 50 pass attempts per game and have not attempted fewer than 41 in any game this season.
The Buffs, meanwhile, are tied for the Pac-12 lead in scoring defense (17.9 points per game allowed), first in total defense (308.4) and first in pass defense (176.9).
Something has give — and here’s what the Buffs must do to get a win Saturday and set up a Pac-12 South showdown with Utah:
1. Stop the run / tackle well in space. When the season began, saying that stopping WSU’s run game would be a key point would have elicited more than a few chuckles. The Cougars have been last in the league in rushing yards the last two seasons.
That’s all changed. The Cougars aren’t last in the Pac-12 in rushing and are instead averaging a respectable (for them) 130 yards per game on the ground. In last week’s win over Cal, the Cougars ran for 254 yards. Meanwhile, WSU backs have accounted for nearly 900 yards receiving.
But maybe the most telling statistic is this: in games in which his teams have rushed for at least 90 yards at WSU, Mike Leach’s record is 14-4, including 6-1 this season.
If the Buffs can bottle up WSU’s run game, they know the Cougars can and will throw the ball. When they start doing that, CU’s job will be to tackle well in space and limit big plays. In a 27-21 loss to the Cougars — the fewest points WSU has scored in a game all season — UCLA picked off one Luke Falk pass, but more importantly, kept the big plays to a minimum. The Bruins kept WSU’s receivers in front of them all night and Falk’s longest completion of the game was just 24 yards.
If the Buffs can produce that kind of defensive effort, it will go a long way in producing a win.
2. Continue to get their offensive groove back. After two games in which they struggled to put points on the board, the Buffs bounced back with 49 points at Arizona last weekend with a balanced attack (175 yards rushing, 213 yards passing).
But defense is no longer an afterthought at WSU. The Cougars have the Pac-12’s top-ranked rush defense, giving up just 116.9 yards per game on the ground, and they’re ranked seventh in overall defense, giving up 388.5 per game.
Still, the Cougars have given up some big numbers. Eastern Washington threw for 496 yards and five touchdowns in their season opening win over the Cougars, and Cal threw for 425 yards and three touchdowns in last weekend’s 56-21 loss.
Teams have also had success running the ball against the Cougars. Oregon State ran for 171 yards in a narrow 35-31 loss.
The key will be establishing some balance. If Buffs can run the ball successfully, they can control the clock and that will open up the passing game. A big key will be limiting the WSU defense’s ability to produce negative plays: while they have only 17 sacks, they have 61 tackles for loss this year.
The Buffs need to keep those plays to a minimum and avoid second-and-long and third-and-long situations. If they can do that, they’ll be able to establish some rhythm and keep the Cougars on their heels.
3. Win the special teams battle. This is not something the Buffs have done with great frequency this year, but they’ve improved significantly over the past several weeks — and Saturday would be the perfect time to continue that trend.
The Cougars have had their own special teams woes this season. WSU is just 5-for-10 in field goal tries this year, a percentage that has forced Leach to abandon field goal attempts unless absolutely necessary. The Cougars have attempted 21 fourth-down conversions and been successful on 13 of them.
As far as coverage teams go, the Cougars have been middle of the road, but they do have a pair of capable return specialists.
If the Buffs can break a big play or two on their return teams and provide good coverage, it will keep momentum on their sidelines. In a game between two evenly matched teams, this is an area that could be the difference.
4. Ball security. The Cougars love to get a lead, force the other team to play catchup and then take advantage of mistakes.
Washington State is second in the Pac-12 in turnover margin at plus-10 — they’ve forced 20 takeaways and given up just 10 turnovers. They don’t make mistakes on offense and when they get a takeaway, they more often than not turn the opponent mistake into points.
Again, this is a game where every mistake will likely be magnified. After giving up four turnovers against UCLA, the Buffs had a much better night in Arizona, yielding just one interception and no fumbles.
They’ll need that kind of effort to make sure they don’t give the Cougars any cheap scores.
5. Win third-down battles. The Cougars have the Pac-12’s leading third-down conversion success rate, moving the chains on more than 50 percent of their third-down tries (72-for-142).
The Buffs, meanwhile, have the league’s best third-down defense, having allowed successful conversions just 30.7 percent of the time (47-for-153).
This area will be particularly big Saturday for several reasons.
One, every third-down stop gets the ball back in the hands of the Buffs offense.
But equally important is that those third-down stops get the defense off the field — and the earlier in the drive, the better.
by extending every drive by a few plays. Even if they don’t score, they’ve accomplished part of their goal — that of tiring out the defense, a process that shows in the fourth quarter. It’s no coincidence the Cougars have scored more point in the fourth quarter (145) than any other quarter this season.
If CU can stop some of those third-down tries early, it will keep their defense fresh and make it more difficult on WSU’s offense down the stretch.
One other factor Saturday will be CU’s ability to be physical on defense. It’s one of those areas that can’t be quantifiably measured but will be a big key all afternoon.
The Cougars have had the most problem with physical teams. UCLA and Oregon State both gave the Cougars fits because they made WSU receivers pay for every catch.
There’s no doubt the Cougars will make some plays. Falk is a master of the offense, knows exactly what Leach wants and executes it to perfection.
But the Buffs will be much better off if they can eliminate the big play and make sure the Cougars feel every tackle.
-30-
Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
cubuffs.com
(Neill Woelk
has been one the most honored and respected sports journalists in Colorado and the West for the past 35 years. The 1982 graduate of the University of Colorado was a long-time columnist, then sports editor, of The Boulder Camera and later was an editor-writer for newspapers in Oregon and Utah. He returned to his alma mater recently as senior contributing editor for cubuffs.com.)