Practice Insider: Colorado preparing both quarterbacks

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After Saturday’s 28-0 disastrous loss to the Washington State Cougars in which quarterback Steven Montez was pulled prior to the second half, the Colorado Buffaloes are looking to salvage what has been a disappointing season for the team with a record of 4-4.

After the game, a frustrated Mike MacIntyre announced there would be an open competition at the quarterback position this week between Monez and Sam Noyer - a claim his actions have supported. In day one of the gameweek prep against Cal, MacIntyre split the reps between the two signal callers and explicitly stated the team had no intentions in revealing their decision to the media anytime soon.

“We’re preparing them both to play,” MacIntyre said. “When we walk out there to play on Saturday is when we’ll make our decision.”

Anytime a quarterback gets benched, they handle it one of two ways: they become increasingly discouraged and they allow their play to regress, or it lights a fire under them and they play better.

Montez has certainly had has moments where he’s sparked the offense and used his feet to make plays. Although he didn’t play well in a wet, cold, Saturday night in Pullman, Buffs fans have to hope the El Paso native gets back on track before it’s too late.

After practice, MacIntyre acknowledged that in some cases, taking a player that’s struggling mightily out of a game allows them to take a step back and look at it from an outside perspective.

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“Hopefully it allows him to focus more, be more determined, understand what he has to do, and allows him to reevaluate the situation,” MacIntyre said. “Sometimes when you’re in a little bit of a rut, it’s good to make a change and see what happens.”

The year long storyline of this offense has been lack of execution. In several instances on Saturday, the Buffs were in Washington State territory with an opportunity to score, yet didn’t capitalize.

“We have to throw and catch it better,” MacIntyre said. “When we threw it, we dropped it, and then when we were open we missed them sometimes. We just have to get some repetition going and pushing at it, and hopefully we can do that - we’ve had some glimpses of that so hopefully we can do it.”

The wideout who’ll have arguably the biggest role in jumpstarting this offense will be senior Bryce Bobo. Through eight games, Bobo is the team’s leading receiver with 451 reception yards. He also ranks inside the top ten in the conference for receptions per game.

Despite the senior’s success in the passing attack - including several circus catches - Colorado hasn’t been able to manufacture the same type of production in the passing game as last season. Part of the problem at hand may be due to the fact that the Buffs haven’t been able to stretch the field and utilize the deep ball in the same manner.

“This season, we haven’t really hit our deep plays,” Bobo said. “We haven’t been effective within our deep balls this year. Last year you saw it a lot with Shay [Fields] and Devin [Ross] - and sometimes even me, going down field and making those big time plays. I think now that’s what we’re lacking in our offense. We haven’t been able to make those deep plays in our passing game.”

The deep ball struggles have been well documented. In CU’s shootout with Arizona, Montez misfired on several deep balls to both Fields and Ross. In the game against Oregon State, they failed to capitalize on several key passing plays - something that easily could’ve cost them a victory.

Last weekend, the story was no different as the wide receivers and quarterback visibly appeared to be on a different page in several instances.

“We as a team have to understand we’re not the same team as we were last year,” Bobo said. “We don’t have the same playmakers on defense, we don’t have some of the same leadership we had on offense, so what we need to do as a team is look around and give ourselves a gut check.”

After practice, MacIntyre acknowledged that the run-first, spread offense that the Buffs utilize allows them to lean on their run game. Regardless, Colorado is going to need to get better in the passing game, and establish a multi-dimensional offensive attack if they want any chance of making a bowl game. CU can’t rely on the likes of Phillip Lindsay to carry the offense every game, especially as the team dives deeper into conference play.

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Notes

-Both Isaiah Oliver and Derek McCartney have recovered well from their injuries suffered Saturday night. Both should be able to play against Cal.

-The gametime status of offensive lineman Jonathan Huckins and defensive lineman Timothy Coleman are up in the air. Huckins remains in concussion protocol, while there has been no update on Coleman’s leg injury.

→In Huckins absence, Tim Lynott has continued to take snaps at center.

-After practice, Bobo said he felt more comfortable catching passes from Montez since he’s had more reps with him. He added that he could potentially reach that same comfort level with Noyer if the coaches decided to go in that direction.

-Throughout his press conference today, MacIntyre preached the importance of repetition and consistency - in both player practices, and in their coaching technique to help put the players in a better situation to win games.

-One of the things they’re doing this week is more ball drills with the defensive backs to decrease the likelihood of more interception drops.

-Trey Udoffia’s number change from 8 to 22 was due to special teams conflict. Since he and wideout Lavishka Shenault (who also plays special teams units with Udoffia) both had number eight, one of them had to switch and Udoffia was the one to do so.

-MacIntyre praised Cal - saying they’ve gotten better on defense and have looked good with their spread set, run-first offense. He had especially high word for quarterback Ross Bowers who the Buffs actively recruited, talking about how his dual-threat ability makes him hard to defend.