Preview: Buffs head to Pacific Northwest for second straight week
VIDEO: Pac-12 Network breaks down Colorado vs Washington State
Staff Predictions: Colorado vs Washington State
5 questions heading into Colorado vs Washington State
MacIntyre wary of WSU QB's ability to make plays from the pocket
What: Colorado (4-3, 1-3) at No. 15 Washington State (6-1, 3-1)
Where: Martin Stadium (32,952), Pullman, WA.
When: Sat., Oct. 21, 7:45 p.m. PT (8:45 p.m. MT)
TV/Radio: ESPN (Beth Mowins, Anthony Becht, Rocky Boiman); Colorado Football Network (Mark Johnson, Gary Barnett).
Colorado returns to the Pacific Northwest for ‘Pac-12 After Dark,’ traveling to Pullman, WA to take on No. 15 Washington State. This is the seventh straight year the Buffs are playing back-to-back Pac-12 road games. Coming off last week’s 36-33 win at Oregon State, Colorado is looking for its first road sweep of consecutive conference road games. The last time the Buffs played back-to-back road games in roughly the same part of the country was 1985 (at Iowa State, at Nebraska).
SERIES HISTORY: Colorado leads the all-time series, 6-4, after posting a 38-24 win in Boulder last season. Each team owns a win when facing each other in Pullman with WSU recording a 27-3 win in 2015. CU earned a 35-34 victory in 2012, Mike Leach’s first season at Washington State. Leach has gone 2-5 all-time against the Buffaloes.
WHAT THE FALK: Containing quarterback Luke Falk and WSU’s Air Raid is the primary task of the Colorado defense this week. But Falk has been pinpoint accurate most games this season and has a completion percentage just over 70 percent. He needs just 422 passing yards to break the career Pac-12 passing yardage record held by former Oregon State QB Sean Mannion (13,600). Falk is the NCAA’s active career leader in passing yards (13,179), TD passes (108), passing yards per game (346.8) and total offense (12,803).
“He's one of their main playmakers on offense, so we’ve put a big emphasis on wanting to stop him,” Buffs LB Drew Lewis said earlier this week about Falk. “Last week's game against Cal, Cal was able to effectively stop their offense and we want to mimic that and lock down that pass game. He's notorious for passing the ball. We want to stop that and force them to run the ball.”
Falk was sacked nine times by Cal as the Golden Bears defensive front seven overwhelmed WSU’s offensive line. MacIntyre says WSU doesn’t care if Falk is sacked a few times since he drops back to pass so many times, but nine is excessive.
“I really don't think Mike Leach cares if he takes a few sacks, honestly,” MacIntyre said earlier this week. “He knows if he (Falk) keeps doing that, he's going to his right reads. Eventually that big play is going to come open. They want him to sit in there and go through his keys and read it and see it. Of course, they don't want to take sacks, but I do think sometimes he'll give up a sack to be able to know the next time they run the same play he'll hold it and get it to the guy. It's amazing. It's almost like he's got eyes on the back of his head sometimes."
GIVE THE BALL TO LINDSAY: Is there a correlation between the number of times Phillip Lindsay carries the ball and the number of points the Buffs score? Yes. Four times this season Lindsay has had 26 or more rushing attempts. The Buffs have averaged 39.0 points in those games. When Lindsay hasn’t reached 26 rushing attempts, CU has averaged 16.7 points per game. Lindsay owns the three longest plays from scrimmage this season for the Buffs, topped by his 74-yard TD run at Oregon State last week. His 178 rushing attempts in 7 games is by far the most in the Pac-12. Over 50 percent (92 of 178) of his carries have come on first down when he is averaging 5.4 yards (496 yards) per rush.
SON OF ZEUS: The Washington State defense has received a lot of national acclaim for fueling the Cougars’ rapid rise up the polls in the first half of the season. The Cougars have 58 tackles for loss, tied for the national lead with Ohio State, and 23 sacks, second in the Pac-12 and tied for fourth in the country. The player credited for sparking WSU’s defense renaissance is DL Hercules Mata’afa.
The redshirt junior from Lahaina, Hawaii has become one of the most feared defensive players in the Pac-12. Mata’afa leads all active Pac-12 players with 36.5 career TFLs and 18.5 career sacks. He was named to the AP Mid-Season All-America team.
“When you get the son of Zeus to play D-line for you it really helps you,” MacIntyre joked. “Hercules is an amazing player. He's so active. They do a great job with how they use him.”
WIN THE TURNOVER BATTLE: An ancient football adage tells us that an essential component of any road victory is winning the turnover battle. If so, Colorado is well primed to do just that. The Buffs have not committed a turnover in a school record 13 quarters, marking the first time in school history the Buffs have gone 3 straight games without a turnover. It’s a major reason CU is plus-3 in turnover margin with 11 takeaways and 8 giveaways.
Only 3 Pac-12 schools have committed fewer turnovers than CU this season. Colorado has four turnover-free games in 2017. Under Mike MacIntyre, the Buffs have 13 turnover-free games out of 58 total played (22.4 pct.). CU is 8-5 in those games. Last week, WSU committed seven turnovers (5 INT) without a single takeaway in the surprising 37-3 loss at Cal. Prior to that game, the Cougars had been plus-6 in turnover margin. Now they are minus-1, tumbling to 10th in the Pac-12. Why is winning the turnover battle important? WSU is 18-3 when forcing 2+ turnovers under defensive coordinator Alex Grinch.
BUFFS DEFENSE: Captain Obvious here. The Colorado defense must improve from the way they have played in the past three games when they have allowed 467 yards (UCLA), 567 (Arizona) and 569 (Oregon State). In those 3 games, opponents have 18 plays of 20+ yards and 48 plays of 10+ yards. Poor run defense has been the major culprit as the Buffs have allowed nearly 700 yards on the ground in the last two games. MacIntyre, though, isn’t pointing finger or questioning defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot.
“DJ's an excellent coach. He knows the system well,” MacIntyre said. “He has a great attitude all the time. He's not a finger-pointer. He's a real team guy. I've been very impressed with that and how he's worked with the staff and how the kids have kept responding to him.”
Here are the statistical leaders for the Buffs defense going into Week 8:
Tackles: Drew Lewis (75)
Tackles For Loss: Leo Jackson (9.0)
Sacks: Leo Jackson (5.0)
Interceptions: Isaiah Oliver, Evan Worthington (3)
Pass Breakups: Isaiah Oliver (9)
QB Hurries: Jacob Callier (7)
Fumble Recoveries: Four tied with 1
Forced Fumbles: Afolabi Laguda (2)
NOTES
-- Colorado will fly into and headquarter in Lewiston, ID, located about 40 miles southeast of Pullman.
-- The Colorado defense must play better in the first quarter. In the last three games the opponent has averaged 160.3 yards in the opening 15 minutes, including 185 yards by Oregon State last week.
-- In the last two games against Arizona and Oregon State, Colorado scored touchdowns on all nine of its trips inside the red zone, while opponents have scored TDs in 5 of 10 red zone trips. Overall, the Buffs scored TDs on 11 of 20 possessions vs. Arizona and OSU after going just 2-for-11 at UCLA.
-- Colorado is now one win away from 700 all-time wins as the Buffs own a record of 699-497-36 (.582 winning percentage). The Buffaloes are 25th on the all-time win list and 36th in all-time winning percentage (29th for those schools with 1,000 or more games played in Division I-A).
-- Since falling to Washington, 37-10, on Sept. 23, Colorado’s last 3 Pac-12 games (at UCLA, Arizona, at Oregon State) this season have been decided by four points or less. MacIntyre is not surprised games against conference foes are not being decided until final possession. “”
-- So far this season, Colorado has been successful on third and fourth downs. The Buffs are 4th in the Pac-12 in third down conversion percentage (49-107; 45.8 pct.) and 3rd in 4th down conversions (7-of-8). The Buffs have converted on seven straight fourth down attempts dating back to the second half of the UCLA game (2-of-2; the last miss was in the first half of that game). Colorado was 4-for-4 on fourth down conversions against Arizona, the second-best single-game performance in school history.
-- Despite last Friday’s loss at Cal, Washington State is 6-1 for the first time since 2003 and enters the week ranked No. 15 in the Associated Press Top-25 and No. 18 in the Coaches Poll. WSU owns the nation’s third-best passing attack.
COLORADO DEPTH CHART
OFFENSE
QB – Steven Montez (Noyer)
RB – Phillip Lindsay (Adkins)
Z WR – Shay Fields (Winfree)
X WR – Bryce Bobo (Shenault)
H WR – Devin Ross (Nixon)
Y WR – Jay MacIntyre (Winfree)(Utilized when in 4 wide set)
TE/HB – George Frazier (Bounds)
LT – Jeromy Irwin (Kaiser)
LG – Gerrad Kough (Tonz)
C – Jonathan Huckins (Lynott)
RG – Tim Lynott Jr. (Middlemiss)
RT – Isaac Miller OR Aaron Haigler (Kaiser)
DEFENSE
LDE – Leo Jackson (Franke)
NT – Jase Franke (Tuiloma)(Javier Edwards injured)
RDE – Chris Mulumba (Franke OR Frazier)
OLB – Derek McCartney (Sparaco)
JACK – Drew Lewis (Landman)
MIKE – Rick Gamboa (Jones)
OLB – Terran Hasselbach (Coleman)
BUFF – Ryan Moeller (Worthington)
CB – Isaiah Oliver (Blackmon)
FS – Afolabi Laguda (Fisher)
SS – Evan Worthington (Moeller)
CB – Dante Wigley (Bergner OR Udoffia)(Udoffia injured)
INJURIES:
CB Trey Udoffia – knee sprain (probable)
DT Javier Edwards – sprained ankle (day-to-day)
TE Dylan Keeney – back spasms (Out - limited to non-practice rehab)
OLB Shamar Hamilton – knee (Out for season)
WR Jaylon Jackson – ankle (Out for season)
S Jaisen Sanchez – torn pec (Out for season)
PAC-12 WEEK 8 SCHEDULE (Oct. 21)
Arizona State at Utah, 1:30 p.m. (FS1)
Oregon at UCLA, 2 p.m. (Pac-12 Network)
USC at Notre Dame, 5:30 p.m. (NBC)
Arizona at California, 6 p.m. (Pac-12 Network)
Colorado at Washington State, 8:45 p.m. (ESPN)
(All Times Mountain)
PAC-12 SOUTH STANDINGS:
USC 4-1 (6-1)
Arizona 2-1 (4-2)
Arizona State 2-1 (3-3)
Utah 1-2 (4-2)
UCLA 1-2 (3-3)
Colorado 1-3 (4-3)
