Report Card: Huskers 28, Colorado Golden Buffaloes 10

In front of the loudest, most raucous crows in Memorial Stadium in nearly ten years, Nebraska’s Blackshirt defense exposed the fraud that is Deion Sanders’ Colorado football program “resurgence”. For all the media hype that Colorado gets, the scoreboard ruled last season that Colorado was a four win team in 2023.

The Colorado Golden Buffaloes look like a four-win team again in 2024. Maybe.

To give Colorado credit, their receiver room looks better this season. And their defense is a little better. But the thing that held Colorado back in 2023 might actually be worse in 2024: the Buffies’ offense line.

Or maybe Nebraska’s defensive line just made it look that way. It started on the first play with Ty Robinson batting down a Shedeur Sanders swing pass. Two plays later, Robinson swallowed up Sanders before he even had a chance to start scrambling to find one of their receivers. Colorado’s rushing numbers went below zero and stayed there nearly the entire night.

After Colorado punted and Nebraska scored, Nash Hutmacher added to the sack parade on the next series to put the Buffies rushing stats deep into the red. A 60 yard Brian Buschini punt pinned Colorado at their own two yard line, and Sanders, knowing that “They coming!”, immediately chucked the ball to Tommi Hill, who simply walked into the end-zone for a Pick-Six.

It went on…and on…and on for most of the first three quarters. Knowing how fast Colorado’s offense could strike through the air if given an opportunity, I was still somewhat concerned about the game midway through the fourth quarter. But Deion already decided to wave the white flag, sending his son to the showers early.

On Saturday night, Nebraska exposed Colorado as a “Not Ready For Prime-time Player” on NBC’s B1G Saturday Night. Frankly, the Buffaloes might not even be an upper division team in the 16 team Big XII this season.

I get the basketball court-storming by Nebraska students after upsetting a top ten team. But Colorado isn’t anything remotely close to being a “top ten” football team. It was a natural reaction to the emotion that the students put into Saturday’s hyped prime time matchup. But the reality is that beating a bottom-tier Power Four conference opponent doesn’t call for that response. Four better teams are coming to Lincoln in upcoming weeks. Maybe even five. (There, I said it. The potential is not completely out of the question.)

Nebraska is looking more like they are finally able to make some noise this season. They left a lot of offense back on the practice field this week, simply because they simply didn’t need to use it against an outmatched, inferior opponent.

I could watch these highlights all dadgummed day.

They will need more on offense when conference play starts in a couple of weeks. A lot more, in fact. With that, it’s on with the report card; as always, your feedback welcome in the comments.

QB: Anybody else get the feeling that Dylan Raiola was asked to simply manage the game and not take a lot of chances? Especially in the second half, Colorado was daring Nebraska to throw the ball deep, and Nebraska didn’t bite…probably because of the confidence that they didn’t need to. The difference between the two CU/NU games? Jeff Sims: four turnovers; Dylan Raiola: ZERO. Raiola was efficient in the short passing game, and did what he needed to (77% completion percentage) in order to get Nebraska to 2-0. Grade: B

I-Back: It’s clear that Nebraska values Rahmir Johnson’s contributions in the passing game highly, and that will ensure he’ll likely see a lot of playing time this season. Dante Dowdell and Emmitt Johnson are better runners, though. Dowdell was great in the first quarter, but Nebraska needs more out of their backs in the coming weeks. Grade: C

WR: Jacory Barney is fast, and that speed killed Colorado. Jaylen Lloyd did a great job adjusting to a pass that wasn’t where Lloyd was going originally; whether that was a wrong route read or a misfire from Raiola is for the coaches to determine, but a great result. Nebraska’s receivers weren’t asked to challenge Travis Hunter and the CU secondary much in this game. Grade: B

OL: Decent in the first half, and not good in the second. Four penalties were too much, even if they were being called for Big XII referees. (Remember how lousy the officiating was when we were in the Big XII?) Grade: C-

DL: Ty Robinson set the tone for this game on the opening play. And it was a total effort across the line. While Shedeur Sanders pointed the finger at his line postgame, the credit goes to the Blackshirts line. Grade: A+

LB: I’ve never been a huge John Bullock fan, but he had a second half to remember, especially with that fourth down shutdown tackle. Also was huge in stopping CU on their opening drive of the second half. We’re going to miss Mikai Gbayor next week in the first half; while the targeting call was technically correct, there wasn’t much Gbayor could do in that situation. Frankly, the Big XII refs missed a far more substantial targeting call in the first half on review. Grade: A

Secondary: While Tommi Hill will get the bulk of the attention from this one, DeShon Singleton and Isaac Gifford also had six tackles as well to lead. Grade: A

Special Teams: There was a little really good (blocked field goal by Ty Robinson, 60 yard bomb by Brian Buscini to pin the Buffies at the two yard line)…and a whole lot of ick. (Long kickoff return by CU, blocked punt, missed chip shot field goal, and generally poor kickoffs.) Grade: D

Overall: B Despite the passion and dislike of Colorado and it’s fans, let’s just realize that Colorado is not a very good football program. Awesome defensive effort and decent first half performance was worth an A, but Ferentzing the second half kept this from being a statement performance.