The Odyssey is happy to have Golden Buffalo Matt reporting from beautiful Boulder. Check the comments to see Matt’s post-game analysis and reaction to the rematch of last year’s Pac12 championship game.
The Huskies visit Boulder as an 11.5 point favorite, undefeated and mostly untested. Besides a slow first half at Rutgers, Washington has been impressive, particularly against one of the Big Sky’s perennial powers, Montana.
The Buffalos are also undefeated and offer one of the most amazing statistics of 2017. Colorad0’s opener was against a prolific Colorado State offense that tallied 58 points against Oregon State in its Week Zero opener. Despite massive losses in the defensive backfield, Colorado held CSU’s potent offense to 3 points. By the end of the 1st quarter, the Rams had punted 4 times. This is the same Colorado State team that scored 23 points and rang up 391 yards at top-ranked Alabama last Saturday. Impressive!
However, Jacob Knipp, the Northern Colorado QB, had several long completions against the Buffs last week. Somehow, UNC gave CU much more of a test on defense than CSU did! So, another Jake, Browning, will be coming to Boulder to test the revamped Buff secondary. Almost makes you flashback to the Jack Nicholson movie, “The Two Jakes.” Definitely a disappointing sequel to the epic, “Chinatown.” We expect tomorrow’s sequel between the 2016 divisional champions to be better.
Record heat in Denver yesterday will be giving way to much cooler temps with a 30% chance of PM showers tomorrow night. The Odyssey cannot wait!
Golden Buff Matt
The final score of the Huskies win Saturday night is deceptive — this was a close game into the 4th quarter. The summary of this game is really the power of the Washington lines on both sides of the ball + the leadership of a veteran QB coming out on top at the end.
For Colorado, a frustrating what-could-have-been. Four plays changed the complexion of the game entirely — an early miss of a wide open CU receiver that was a certain TD (that could have been completed by anyone in the stadium) was a precursor of what was to come. CU gave Washington two TDs on a blocked punt and pick six as well.
Conclusions are 1) Washington is a solid team; not sure they are a playoff team yet (but have the talent to be) and 2) Colorado will be competitive again for the PAC 12 South title. Two good teams playing a good game on a college football Saturday — can’t get better than that.