On Saturday afternoon, Colorado wasn’t just playing against the Texas Tech football team. Instead, the Buffs spent a majority of the day dodging tortillas and other flying objects coming from the hostile Jones AT&T Stadium crowd.

Despite the extracurriculars from the Red Raider faithful, the Buffs weren’t deterred. Colorado (7-2, 5-1 Big 12) found its stride in the second half and raced out to a multi-score lead before closing out Texas Tech (6-4, 4-3) in a 41-27 victory.

Colorado came out of the locker room like it had forgotten the bye week had passed. The Buffs lollygagged through the entire first quarter, giving up a massive kickoff return followed by a four-play touchdown drive in just over a minute.

When they got the ball with a chance to answer, the Buffs started their day on offense with a false start followed by a fumbled snap. Maybe it was the noise, maybe it was the magnitude of the game, maybe it was the tortillas, but whatever it was Colorado was rattled.

As they have so many times this season, Robert Livingston and the Colorado defense dug in and helped the Buffs hang around. While Shedeur Sanders and the offense stumbled through three-and-out after three-and-out, Livingston’s defense held the Red Raiders to two field goals. As a result, a deficit that could have been 21 points was limited to just 13.

Pat Shurmur made the necessary adjustments to get the offense going in the second quarter. After the Buffs struggled to push the ball down the field, Shurmur opened up the screen game and started to allow Sanders to get the ball out quickly. The change paid dividends immediately, as Colorado marched down the field and LaJohntay Wester took one of those screens 23 yards to the end zone to get the Buffs on the board.

Colorado continued to hold firm defensively through the rest of the second quarter, and Texas Tech kicker Gino Garcia missed a long field goal at the end of the half to keep the Buffs’ deficit at just three headed into the break.

Those adjustments from Shurmur opened the floodgates for the Buffs offensively. Sanders and company found their stride in the third quarter. The Buffs scored touchdowns on all three of their third quarter drives to take a 31-20 lead into the fourth and left Texas Tech without many answers as to what to do on defense.

Before Colorado’s third touchdown, with the Buffs leading 24-20, a brief moment of panic came back to cost Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire. McGuire opted to fake a punt on fourth-and-5 on the Red Raiders’ 31-yard line. The pass was incomplete, and Travis Hunter put the Buffs up multiple scores just a few plays later.

After holding firm down to down for most of the game, Colorado protected its multi-score lead by forcing a pair of crucial turnovers. First, it was linebacker Nikhai Hill-Green capping off an amazing performance with an acrobatic interception at the line of scrimmage to get the ball back for CU. After a Buffs punt, BJ Green sacked Behren Morton and knocked the ball out, and Cam’Ron Silmon-Craig pounced on it deep in Red Raiders territory.

Texas Tech got one of the scores back late in the fourth quarter as tight end Jalin Conyers made a leaping catch in the end zone for his second touchdown of the day, but Garcia’s onside kick attempt was recovered by Wester. The Red Raiders’ defense gave Morton one last-ditch chance to go down the field and tie the game, but Arden Walker stripped the Texas Tech quarterback and Shilo Sanders calmly picked it up and strolled into the end zone to put the game away for good.

The Buffs’ front seven was all over the place in Saturday's game. Morton was sacked six times and the Buffs made 10 stops behind the line of scrimmage. Star running back Tahj Brooks ran for 137 yards, but it took him 31 carries to get there.

Offensively, it was a pretty clean game for Shedeur Sanders, who finished 31 for 43 with 291 yards and four total touchdowns. Travis Hunter led the receiving corps with 99 yards and a score.

While Colorado was climbing its way back in this game, Iowa State dropped its second consecutive game, this time against Kansas. As a result, Colorado is alone in second place in the Big 12 with three games to play. The Buffs will continue their chase for a conference title next Saturday in Boulder when Utah comes to town.

First quarter

TTU 13:50: Jalin Conyers 17-yard pass from Behren Morton (Gino Garcia kick), TTU 7-0

TTU 7:04: Gino Garcia 53-yard field goal, TTU 10-0

TTU 2:28: Gino Garcia 39-yard field goal, TTU 13-0

Second quarter

COL 7:33: LaJohntay Wester 23-yard pass from Shedeur Sanders (Alejandro Mata kick), TTU 13-7

COL 0:30: Alejandro Mata 26-yard field goal, TTU 13-10

Third quarter

COL 11:00: Shedeur Sanders 7-yard run (Alejandro Mata kick), COL 17-13

TTU 7:52: Tahj Brooks 2-yard run (Gino Garcia kick), TTU 20-17

COL 4:25: Will Sheppard 5-yard pass from Shedeur Sanders (Alejandro Mata kick), COL 24-20

COL 1:18: Travis Hunter 24-yard pass from Shedeur Sanders (Alejandro Mata kick), COL 31-20

Fourth quarter

COL 9:46: Alejandro Mata 33-yard field goal, COL 34-20

TTU 2:12: Jalin Conyers 21-yard pass from Behren Morton (Gino Garcia kick), COL 34-27

COL: 0:51: Shilo Sanders 6-yard fumble return (Alejandro Mata kick), COL 41-27

Colorado pulled out the win in this game because of the adjustments that both coordinators made early in the game on both sides of the ball.

Defensively, Texas Tech was hurting the Buffs early in the game with a variety of pick plays and crossing routes, exploiting Livingston’s man-heavy scheme on the way to an easy opening drive touchdown. Livingston quickly responded by playing more zone and sending a little pressure at Morton, which halted the Red Raiders’ offense almost immediately.

Offensively, the Buffs weren’t getting any separation down the field and Shedeur Sanders was under fire early in the game. At the start of the second quarter, Shurmur started getting the ball out of Shedeur Sanders’ hand quickly and leaned into Colorado’s screen game. As a result, the Buffs’ wide receivers were able to exploit Texas Tech’s tackling weakness and create a lot of big plays after the catch.

Early in the game, the Buffs were in desperate need of someone to just make one play that would allow the rest of the team to settle in and slow everything down. The Buffs couldn’t move the ball on offense and they were struggling on defense as Texas Tech threatened to pull away.

On the first drive of the second quarter, Texas Tech faced a second-and-1 while holding onto a 13-0 lead. Colorado edge rusher Arden Walker came up with a huge sack on Morton, pushing the Red Raiders back to third-and-10 and eventually forcing a punt. The Buffs scored a touchdown on the ensuing drive, and they were off to the races from there.

This game turned into somewhat of a back-and-forth shootout in the third quarter, with both offenses marching up and down the field. After a long drive and a big gain by Will Sheppard on a screen pass, the Vanderbilt transfer punctuated the drive with an acrobatic, juggling touchdown catch.

The Colorado linebackers were the MVPs of this game, and arguably nobody played better than Nikhai Hill-Green. Hill-Green made Tahj Brooks’ life difficult in the running game all day, made plenty of stops near the line of scrimmage, and came up with this incredible interception in the fourth quarter.

An effort like this one doesn’t warrant just one player of the game. Colorado’s entire front seven gets a game ball for an excellent performance where they excelled both stopping the run and defending the pass.

Texas Tech couldn’t get anything going on the ground with Tahj Brooks in the first half, as the nation’s sixth leading rusher coming in went into halftime with just 37 yards on 15 carries. He broke out a bit in the second half, but still finished under 4.5 yards per carry. The group also tallied six sacks and 10 tackles for loss in Saturday's game.

Some of the individual performances by the group were stunning. LaVonta Bentley had a team-high 10 tackles. Hill-Green had nine tackles and an interception. Amari McNeill was arguably the best of the bunch, with nine tackles, 1.5 sacks and three TFLs. Arden Walker had seven tackles and two sacks. BJ Green had two sacks and forced a fumble, and the list goes on. This group won the day on Saturday in Lubbock.

Defensive tackle Shane Cokes missed the game after getting banged up against Cincinnati before the bye week. He was a game-time decision last week, but couldn’t go in the end. Running back Micah Welch also missed the game due to the hamstring injury that he has been dealing with for more than a month now.

Wide receiver Jimmy Horn Jr. left Saturday's game early in the first half with a lower body injury. He was listed as questionable to return, but didn’t end up coming back.

Colorado

Total Yards: 351

Passing

Shedeur Sanders: 30-for-43, 291 yards, 3 TD

Rushing

Isaiah Augustave: 10 carries, 32 yards

Dallan Hayden: 6 carries, 17 yards

Shedeur Sanders: 9 carries, 16 yards, TD

Drelon Miller: 1 carry, -1 yards

Receiving

Travis Hunter: 9 catches, 99 yards TD

LaJohntay Wester: 6 catches, 82 yards, TD

Will Sheppard: 8 catches, 79 yards, TD

Isaiah Augustave: 3 catches, 21 yards

Sav’ell Smalls: 1 catch, 10 yards

Drelon Miller: 1 catch, 5 yards

Dallan Hayden: 2 catches, -5 yards

Texas Tech

Total yards: 388

Passing

Behren Morton: 24-for-40, 275 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT

Jason Llewellyn: 0-for-1

Rushing

Tahj Brooks: 31 carries, 137 yards, TD

J’Koby Williams: 4 carries, 12 yards

Behren Morton: 11 carries, -36 yards

Receiving

Josh Kelly: 8 catches, 106 yards

Jalin Conyers: 3 catches, 50 yards, 2 TD

Coy Eakin: 4 catches, 40 yards

Tahj Brooks: 3 catches, 37 yards

Caleb Douglas: 3 catches, 16 yards

Peyton Morgan: 1 catch, 14 yards

Jordan Brown: 1 catch, 7 yards

Johncarlos Miller II: 1 catch, 5 yards