5 takeaways from Colorado's season-opening win against UNC

BOULDER – FOOTBALL IS BACK!

The Colorado Buffaloes topped the Northern Colorado Bears 35-7 on Friday under the lights at Folsom Field. It was the first game of the season for both teams.

While fans may be disappointed that Buffs didn’t beat the Bears by more (which is rare after a four-score win) the Buffs opened the season with a solid effort.

Here’s what you need to know.

Ralphie ran

We’ll save the actual football for just a minute.

A decade from now, Friday night will be best remembered as the debut of Ralphie VI. The next in the line of live mascots for the Buffaloes was announced on Wednesday.

Ralphie made two runs on Friday, leading the Buffs onto the field before the game and again after halftime.

College football is perfect 🥲 pic.twitter.com/yEj9xpTARq

— Henry Chisholm (@HenryChisholm) September 4, 2021

🚨 DOUBLE RALPHIE 🚨 pic.twitter.com/0Bn2y80XR6

— Henry Chisholm (@HenryChisholm) September 4, 2021

By all accounts, it was a successful debut for the 15-month-old buffalo.

Ralphie is on track to run before Colorado takes on No. 6 Texas A&M at Empower Field in Denver on Saturday.

Brendon Lewis was cautious

Colorado’s freshman quarterback made his starting debut on Friday and it was a fairly mediocre night. He completed 10 of 15 passes for 102 yards and a touchdown.

It was an efficient—but not explosive—performance for Lewis.

Take a look at the passing chart:

Some of the peripheral stats are worth noting, too:

• At the time of this story, Lewis was graded as the eighth-best quarterback perfornance in the country by PFF, out of 39 passers with at least five drop backs
• Out of those same 39 passers, Lewis took the longest to throw the football, on average
• Out of those same 39 passers, Lewis was pressured on the second-highest percentage of drop backs, probably because of how long he held the ball

Here’s the big takeaway: Lewis was incredibly conservative.

He only attempted two deep passes and the majority of the balls he threw were near the line of scrimmage. This is not a successful formula.

But, it may have been the game plan.

Lewis was likely told by coaches all week to avoid turning the ball over. Colorado was going to win the game, as long as it didn’t make a dozen mistakes. Regardless, Lewis needs to start throwing the ball more and holding it less if this offense is going to make noise this season.

Lewis passed up plenty of opportunities to hit his receivers. Rather than trusting them to get open out of their breaks, Lewis waited until he could see his receivers open to throw them the ball. The passing windows open and close quickly in college football, and waiting until he could see that his receiver was open meant that the window was closed before Lewis could throw the ball, forcing him to buy time while trying to find another option.

There were also plays where receivers had a half-step on their defender, but Lewis didn’t want to try to drop a ball in over the top.

The big mistake on the night was a missed touchdown throw. Daniel Arias was wide open for what should have been an easy score, but Lewis missed the pass.

In Lewis’ defense, his receivers struggled to separate when the quarterback was out of the pocket. With a dual-threat passer like Lewis who can extend plays, Colorado’s receivers must get better at finding space during broken plays.

Lewis also made a couple of big-time throws. The two that come to mind both came on rollouts where Lewis found a receiver on the sideline, including the touchdown throw below.

TOUCHDOWN 🦬@brendonlewis123 finds @Montana_L_Craig for the score

📺 @Pac12Network
📱 https://t.co/nVo70ifL7j pic.twitter.com/Hnh8CFSnDR

— Colorado Buffaloes Football (@CUBuffsFootball) September 4, 2021

The flashes were there for Colorado’s young quarterback, but he needs to start making reads more quickly and performing more clinically. A conservative approach isn’t a bad idea in a game the Buffs were favored to win by 38 points, but Lewis needs to step it up next week against Texas A&M if Colorado wants a shot at an upset.

The running game was explosive… eventually

Colorado’s entire offense started slowly, and it didn’t score any points until the second quarter. While struggles from a first-time starting quarterback are to be expected, Colorado should have been able to run the ball on the Bears from the jump.

Reigning Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year was the first runner in the game for CU, and he only mustered eight total yards on his first five carries. The offensive line struggled to open holes for Broussard.

By the end of the game, Broussard had 15 carries for 94 yards and a touchdown, which is a solid performance, even for his standards.

Alex Fontenot, Ashaad Clayton and Deion Smith all scored rushing touchdowns, too. Fontenot had the lowest rushing average of the four backs mentioned above, with five yards per carry.

Colorado’s running game was a strength on Saturday, but it started slowly and the competition doesn’t compare to what the Buffs will see over the next 12 weeks of football. Next week, the challenge for the running game will be much tougher and a slow start would leave little hope against a top-10 ranked opponent.

The defense dominated

Defensively, Colorado did just about everything that could have been asked of it.

UNC opened up the game with a 35-yard drive, which was longer than should probably have been expected considering the talent differential. But, after the game, multiple CU defenders noted that the team expected to see a totally different offense from UNC than what new head coach Ed McCaffrey debuted on Friday. Namely, Colorado expected a bunch of heavy sets, not a spread-type scheme. That makes sense, given that UNC quarterback Dylan McCaffrey picked up first downs through the air on his first two offensive plays of the game.

The Bears only had one more first down before their last drive of the half.

On that last drive, the Bears drove the length of the field, but Mekhi Blackmon picked off an overthrown pass in the end zone. The play may changed the course of the game, as Colorado’s halftime lead could have been cut from 14-0 to 14-7, had the drive resulted in a touchdown.

Colorado dominated in the trenches, with Jalen Sami picking up a sack and another tackle for loss, but discipline issues existed, which extended a couple of drives. One of those drives resulted in a touchdown, after Sami was called for unsportsmanlike on 4th & 7.

The Buffs also missed more tackles than you’d expect, given the talent differential. One of those missed tackles came on the Bears’ only touchdown of the game.

Regardless, giving up seven points is always a solid performance. There’s still plenty to clean up, especially in terms of avoiding penalties, but it was a good first game back for the Buffs’ D.

Dimitri Stanley made some noise

While Colorado’s offense struggled to get going early, it was helped out by an explosive performance from Dimitri Stanley in the return game.

The Bears punted on their first four drives of the game. The first one bounced to the Colorado 11, but the next three were returned by Stanley.

The first went for 22 yards.

The second went for 19 yards.

And Stanley’s third and final return of the night was a 27-yarder.

If Stanley keeps that pace up for the entire season, he’ll take second on the all-time NCAA leaderboard for punt return average in a single season.

Read more about Stanley’s night here.