As the Buffaloes trek onward into an uncertain weekend — on Sunday, the Pac-12 canceled CU's planned Nov. 21 game vs. Arizona State due to COVID concerns among the Sun Devils program — one thing is for certain: offensively, Colorado is off to a red hot start.
The way offensive coordinator Darrin Chiaverini put it, that's no coincidence.
As CU fans can hardly have forgotten, Chiaverini's offense put up 48 points in the Buffs' season-opening win over UCLA, a game that saw quarterback Sam Noyer and tailback Jarek Broussard make their first career starts.
This past Saturday on the road at Stanford, the Buffs mustered 35 points, beating the Cardinal by three points.
Colorado is a perfect 10-of-10 in the red zone, is averaging 41.5 points per game (both figures lead the Pac-12) and out of 120 minutes played over two games, the Buffs have been in the lead for 103 of them.
The Buffaloes have ran a total of 161 plays on offense, passing the ball 35% of the time and running it 65% of the time.
Chiaverini indicated that the strong support he's received from head coach Karl Dorrell has been key in him designing and calling an effective offensive attack.
"Coach Dorrell has been great," Chiaverini said. "He’s really allowed me to be myself and call the game. He’ll give me a little bit of feedback here and there but he’s been great and has been very supportive. I couldn’t ask for a better head coach, even though I played for him and there’s some interaction there, but he allows me to be myself and call the game, which I appreciate."
Through two games, Chiaverini has guided the Buffaloes to the first-ranked scoring offense in the Pac-12. Broussard is the Pac's leading rusher and leader in all-purpose yards. CU's passing efficiency, with a 65% team completion rate, ranks third.
The Buffs' 52% third down conversion rate is also third in the Pac-12, as is the offense's 48 first downs.
For Chiaverini, entering his fifth year at Colorado, the time on staff has given him a strong grasp on how to best utilize the players at his disposal.
"I have a good feel for the personnel of this offense because I’ve been here for five years and I’ve recruited a lot of these players," he said. "That’s a benefit for me.”
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In particular, Chiaverini has been careful to call Colorado's offense in a manner that suits Noyer.
Whatever the intricacies of Chiaverini's approach may be, through two games, they're working. Noyer's looked confident in his responsibilities, has completed 64% of his passes and has thrown for 512 yards.
For Chiaverini, making things as straightforward as possible for Noyer at the line of scrimmage has been a goal of his.
"I try to make the (offensive) system friendly for quarterbacks — I really do try to make it easy on their eyes," he said. "You don’t have a ton of checks — we check some things (but) we don’t check everything. I think last year we had a lot of checks and so that's probably why we had a lot of pre-snap penalties because of that."
"I try to stay away from that, I try to play with a little more tempo and a little more rhythm to make it easy on the quarterback as far as what he’s actually looking at."
At this point in the season, the story of Noyer's unlikely path to becoming the Buffaloes' starting quarterback has been well-documented.
Chiaverini, who along with quarterbacks coach Danny Langsdorf played a critical role in convincing Noyer to return to Colorado and exercise his final year of eligibility, remembered making the phone call to Noyer, when the latter was just getting settled into post-college graduate life in his hometown of Beaverton, Oregon.
A major talking point between Chiaverini and Noyer as the former laid out his plans for Colorado's offense in 2020 was that schematically, things were going to be a lot easier on the signal caller.
Chiaverini was able to convince Noyer of that and he is confident that in the years to come, he'll be able to do the same with future quarterback recruits.
"Sam and I had a very candid conversation just about how I call the offense, how I build the system for the quarterbacks and (that) it is quarterback-friendly," Chiaverini said. "CU should be a quarterback-destination place for quarterbacks in high school because the system is conducive for success — it really is.”
