Wide receiver Daniel Arias played his first game of the 2022 season on his 24th birthday, and even though Colorado's offense did not produce, Arias was one of the few who could walk away celebrating his performance.

He led the Buffaloes in receiving with 4 catches for 66 yards and executed Colorado’s most substantial play of the game, catching a 35-yard pass from QB J.T. Shrout. One of out of the other four catches came on a 25-yard pass from Brendon Lewis.

“I didn’t really hear the crowd when the ball was in the air,” Arias said. “When I caught the ball and it’s like everything unmuted and I hear people and all the fans so that was a really cool experience. You work for those moments and those are some cool moments that you can’t get back.”

One of Arias’s birthday wishes was to score an early touchdown.

“It was fun,” the fifth-year senior said of starting the season on his birthday. “I really wish I would have scored early. It would’ve made the night a lot of fun, but it was really fun just catching those catches and doing what I can to help the team win.”

Arias’s hot start in the first half dissipated with the rest of Colorado’s offense. TCU adjusted their defense accordingly in the second as they put stronger coverage on Arias.

“The DB on the other team kept following me wherever,” Arias said. He also mentioned how the DBs used a bracketed coverage on his side in the second half as well.

As a result, Arias only had 2 more targets -- a 2-yard catch in the third quarter and an incompletion in the fourth.

“I felt like we were attacking the first half,” he said. “We were making the right reads and making plays and I feel like we sort of just got complacent in the second half.”

As Colorado reassesses its offensive approaches this week, Arias should be utilized more in the pass game, at least more than 6 targets. Going 4 for 6 with a pair 20-yard-plus plays makes him CU’s most productive playmaker at the moment.

He's also well on his way to a breakout season after setting career-highs last year with 19 catches for 237 yards (and 1 TD).

However, it could remain a challenge for him and the coaches to find ways to get him open if opponents continue to shade attention to his side.

Arias was in his sophomore season when the Buffs last met with the Falcons in 2019. The game escaped them via an overtime touchdown by the Falcons.

Scouting the 2022 Falcons, Arias said “[the defense gives] us a lot of space. … They have a lot of good guys that they're told what to do and they're at the spot where they're supposed to be at every single time. So we can’t overlook that because we played [them] my sophomore year and we lost because we weren't disciplined.”

Arias is working this week to be disciplined in his details, and come Saturday, maybe score his belated birthday TD.