Colorado Buffaloes College Football Preview 2021: Keys To The Season
Colorado Buffaloes Biggest Key: Offense
The passing game has to be sharper. The running game will be a potential killer with an outstanding group of backs working around a strong-looking line. Now the passing game has to hold up its end of the deal.
The coaching staff at the top specializes in cranking up the passing game, but that started to fall flat late in the season. To be fair, the 92 passing yards against Arizona were so low because the ground game was ripping off yards in massive chunks – but there were still two picks.
After that the Buffs failed to his half of their passes in either of the last two games – both losses to Utah and Texas – but it’s more than that. There weren’t enough big things happening down the field with seven interceptions thrown along with just six touchdown passes.
Colorado Buffaloes Biggest Key: Defense
Generate more takeaways. There’s still a question mark about how good the pass defense really is – it didn’t face a whole slew of killer passing games in 2020 – but the secondary will be fine.
There’s some work to do on the defensive front, and missing LB Nate Landman for any stretch of time could be a problem, but the front seven will be good.
The pass rush was manufactured from a few spots and there were plenty of tackles for loss. Now it all has to add up to more big plays.
The Buffs came up with four takeaways in the fun 48-42 win over UCLA to start the season, and that was about it. There was just one recovered fumble over the last five games, just three more passes were picked off, and the team failed to win the turnover margin after beating the Bruins.
Colorado has won the turnover margin in just three of its last 12 games.
Colorado Buffaloes Key Player To A Successful Season
QB Sam Noyer, Sr.
Or JT Shrout, or Brendon Lewis, or any of the quarterback options for a passing game that, again, needs to do more. Noyer was good enough to earn Second Team All-Pac-12 honors, but he only hit 55% off his passes for 1,101 yards with six touchdown passes and seven picks.
He’s got the size and he can run, but to get through a brutal first half of the season, Colorado needs its quarterback to be able to carry the attack at times. Noyer was out this spring, but it’s still likely his job to lose come fall.
Colorado Buffaloes Key Game To The 2021 Season
at Arizona State, Sept. 25
Of course Colorado wants to beat USC the week after when it has to come to Boulder, but dreaming of winning the Pac-12 South goes bye-bye right out of the conference schedule gate with a loss at ASU. And why?
USC, at Oregon, at UCLA, at Utah, at Cal, Washington. The rest of the conference slate is horrible, and that’s after getting Texas A&M and Minnesota before facing the Sun Devils.
The two didn’t play last year, but Colorado the last two meetings and three of the last four.
– Colorado Buffaloes Schedule Breakdown & Analysis
2020 Colorado Buffaloes Fun Stats
– Tackle For Loss: Colorado 46 for 125 yards – Opponents 33 for 99 yards
– 3rd Quarter Buff Scoring: 41 – 4th Quarter Scoring: 16
– 3rd Down Conversions: Colorado 47% – Opponents 34%