Colorado's losing streak hit three Saturday night following a one-sided 41-10 thumping at the hands of Washington State. The Buffaloes (3-4, 1-3 Pac-12) now head back to Boulder searching for some answers but a short week lay ahead, as Colorado will host Southern California in Boulder Friday night at 7 p.m. MST.
Attached below is a brief, 85-second highlight reel from Saturday's loss in Pullman. While certainly far from flattering for the Buffs, the short video features a number of plays on both sides of the ball that illuminate some of Colorado's ongoing struggles.
1. The first play that's shown in this highlight reel is WSU RB Max Borghi's first quarter TD catch. He slips out of the backfield, no one on the Buffs picks him up, he makes the catch and easily strolls into the endzone.
If you can get the video paused to about the 0:04 mark, you'll notice that Davion Taylor, who begins the play in between the A and R in "Cougar" bordering the endzone, sniffs this one out almost as soon as the ball is snapped.
Notice he points right at Borghi, who immediately cuts out of the backfield and soon turns around to catch the ball. Next is observing what Mark Perry and Derrion Rakestraw do. They both are caught flat footed and move to pursue the WSU wide receiver moving across the middle of the field on a slant. Rakestraw takes too extreme of an angle and awkwardly flips around to keep chasing the WR, who ends up running into traffic trying to get around Taylor and Nate Landman — if that play had gone on a few seconds longer and Anthony Gordon had rolled out of the pocket to his right, that man may have been open.
Somebody must have been assigned Borghi on that play and from what the film shows, the guy who could have made a play on him was Perry. Right as the ball snaps and Borghi embarks on his route, Perry should have put on the afterburners and busted into the backfield.
He had a straight line to do so that would have at the minimum slowed Borghi down in the event he missed the open field tackle. The actual play call could indicate otherwise, but from what's shown, Perry appears to have made a mistake on that one.
2. Next up is Steven Montez's first INT on a ball intended for Tony Brown. I like the camera angle used initially because it really shows how poor of a decision throwing that ball there was. WSU's No. 25, Skyler Thomas, is situated perfectly there to jump the route and Montez's ball is a floater that hangs in the air for a painfully long amount of time. Dimitri Stanley is seen to the upper right of Brown.
Throwing the ball his way seems like the more logical move on that play.
3. Gordon's 22-yard TD pass to Dezmon Patmon on a slant. This was the first of two TDs thrown with K.J. Trujillo providing direct coverage and if you can pause the video at the 0:19 mark, with Patmon cutting and the ball in midair, Trujillo has already lost the battle and is a couple steps behind the WR.
Trujillo tries to compensate, dive and deflect the ball but it's caught cleanly and Patmon moves up the field another 11 yards into the endzone with Rakestraw unable to get to him and attempt a touchdown-saving tackle.
I respect Trujillo a lot in his attempts to be a contributor as a true freshman but when you're beat, you're beat and on that play, Patmon won his route.
4. Max Borghi's 47-yard TD run. I'm starting to see why he gets compared to Christian McCaffrey. That TD was the product of a very impressive run. Landman misses a tackle first, followed by a diving Rakestraw, followed by a pursuing and then diving Taylor and finally McCaffrey bullies his way into the endzone with Mikial Onu trying to drag him down.I give credit for Taylor busting his tail in pursuit of Borghi but as for Landman and Rakestraw, bad form.
5. Montez's interception in the endzone. Just hard to watch. Harder to comprehend the decision-making that went into lobbing that ball. That play was on a 3rd and 7 from WSU's 15-yard line and came right after a strange 2nd and 10 wildcat rush by Laviska Shenault.
If I'm trying to get in Montez's head, the only justification I can come up with is that he clearly was frustrated with himself already, the Buffs' inability to score prior to that point and thus rolled the dice and slung the ball as opposed to CU attempting its fourth field goal of the game.Understandable to feel a sense of urgency in getting a TD but that decision was even worse that the first pick, and the first pick was no doubt bad. Just a bad bad decision all around.
6. Wazzu goes up 31-10 with a 44-yard TD through the air. This one appears to be on Onu, who clearly appears to be out of position in defending WSU's Brandon Arconado. Looks like Onu slowed up his pursuit for a hot second right before the ball was thrown. If you pause at the 0:56 mark, you'll see Onu is facing the LOS and Gordon with Arconado well in front of him with more than enough separation to haul in the pass and escape for a TD.
7. Last one, corner of the endzone TD over the head of Trujillo. Pause at 1:18. Trujillo is positioned to take away the inside slant or any attempt by WSU's Tay Martin to run a route to his right but in doing so, leaves his move/route to the outside or corner of the endzone uncontested.
Trujillo doesn't even get a hand on him, the ball is on the money and Martin reels it in a few steps ahead of the former. That play felt like Trujillo, knowingly or out of habit, rolled the dice, anticipated Martin to go inside and thus defended accordingly in a way to disrupt that, but in doing so, set himself up to get burned on a route that wasn't designed to send Martin across the middle.
