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Midway through the first quarter of Friday night’s Rocky Mountain Showdown at Sports Authority Field in Denver, Colorado running back Phillip Lindsay burst 45 yards up the middle for the game’s first touchdown, the longest scoring play in the Buffaloes’ annual intrastate rivalry grudge match against Colorado State.
The Buffs’ offense was off and running. Well, for the first half at least. Lindsay’s TD run jump started a 17-point surge by Colorado in the first 17 minutes of the game, and the Buffs never looked back as their defense held the Rams offense, which destroyed the Oregon State defense in Week Zero, out of the end zone for the entire 60 minutes and allowed just a single second quarter field goal.
After his TD run, Lindsay carried twice for 29 yards on Colorado’s next possession, which ended with James Stefanou booting a 39-yard field goal late in the first quarter.
Linday, though, wasn’t done contributing to a Colorado scoring drive. On the Buffs’ fourth possession, he scampered 18 yards on second down and then for seven yards after a penalty. His running helped move Colorado to the CSU 31-yard line, where Steven Montez spun out the pocket and fired a TD pass to Shay Fields for a 17-0 Buffs lead.
Lindsay has always been a team-first guy throughout his career, and he gave full credit to Colorado’s offensive line for his 45-yard TD run. He raced virtually untouched through the heart of the Rams defense.
“The offensive line did business up front, and I was patient, followed it, and it hit (exactly) how it always does in practice,” Lindsay said afterwards. “After that, it’s just about getting out, and understanding that scoring is going to help my team, and it’s all about the team. I was glad I was able to do that.”
By halftime, Lindsay had 101 yards rushing on seven carries, an impressive average of 14.43 yards per carry.
“Last year people stopped catching him, this year they won’t catch him either,” Mike MacIntyre said of Lindsay. “He has that extra gear, he’s a little faster, a little stronger. Michael Adkins (10 yards on 4 carries) came in and did some good things, I’ve been pleased with Michael Adkins since camp. Beau Bisharat (2 yards on 1 carry) has done really well. I’m excited about our running backs.”
Like the rest of the Colorado offense, Lindsay’s production stalled in the second half (12 carries for 39 yards), but his huge first half was more than enough to help push the Buffs past CSU for the third year in a row.
His 140 yard rushing marked his seventh career 100-yard rushing game. The 45-yard touchdown run in the first quarter was the fourth longest first scoring play from scrimmage of the season in Colorado history, eclipsed only by a trio of TD passes by Connor Wood (82 yards in 2012) , Sefo Liufau (54 yards in 2014) and Kordell Stewart (48 yards in 1992).
Thus, it was the longest RUSHING first touchdown of the season from scrimmage in school history.
In a testament to his team-first approach, Lindsay simply shrugged his shoulders when asked about adding another 100-yard rushing game to his career resume.
“I’m not really a selfish person like that. I don’t really look into stuff like that,” Lindsay said. “I’m happy to win the game. Anything I can do to help win the game, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m happy that my offensive line did what they did to help me get to where I got today.”
Lindsay thanked Buffs strength and conditioning coach Drew Wilson for the countless hours they spent together this past offseason getting prepared for the season. As MacIntyre said, the senior running back is bigger, faster and stronger this season.
“I definitely worked on strength and speed,” Lindsay said. “I thank coach Drew for that. Coach Drew has been a phenomenal weight coach for us and it’s going to show. Throughout this whole season, we will continue to get stronger. We’re going to be lifting and we will be able to peak at the right time.”
According to the Colorado SID office, Lindsay’s 140-yard outing catapulted him past Lamont Warren (2,242 career rushing yards), Lee Rouson (2,296) and Bobby Anderson (2,367) into ninth place on the Buffs all-time rushing list.
Overall, Colorado finished with 143 net rushing yards on 38 carries (3.76 yards per attempt), half of them by Lindsay. Five sacks on quarterback diminished CU’s rushing total by 37 yards.
The Buffs know with the Pac-12 schedule starting Sept. 23 against Washington, they must get more consistent in the ground game.
“I’m an offensive lineman, I’d like to run the ball every play and I know Phil [Lindsay] would like that as well,” Colorado center Jonathan Huckins said. “We just have to keep building off of what we did this game. We started with some good holes because we got going fast, so we just have to settle down and move faster and move ‘Folsom fast’ like we always do.”
Lindsay acknowledged the Colorado offense, which didn’t score in the final 43:46 of the Rocky Mountain Showdown, failed to light up the scoreboard as they expected in the season opener. Solution? Get back to work early this week when the Buffs begin preparations for the home opener in Boulder against Texas State.
“We’re going to go back to square one,” Lindsay said. “We didn’t score like we wanted to, but it was Montez’s first time as the head man. I’m excited for him, he’s a great quarterback and he’s going to win a lot of games in the Pac-12. We just have to go back to square one and that starts Monday.”
