BOULDER – This game was supposed to be about redemption. The Colorado Buffaloes felt ‘embarrassed’ after the Pac-12 Championship and felt like they had something to prove in the rematch against the Washington Huskies. There was just one problem: they never fixed their run defense, arguably the biggest problem in the Pac-12 Championship game.
“It was pitiful by us in the second half stopping the run,” head coach Mike MacIntyre said after the game. “We should be better than that and we weren’t. We need to find a way to get better at it.”
In the 2016 matchup, the Huskies pounded the football down the Buffaloes’ throat. Washington rushed for 265 yards in that matchup and on Saturday it was deja vu.
“The guys up front were doing their job, they were making it easy for me,” Huskies running back Myles Gaskin said. “The rain and everything kind of factored in so we were sticking to the run today and it worked out how it did.”
The Buffs had no answer for Washington’s running game despite them missing their second best rusher, Lavon Coleman, to an injury. The Huskies only needed one runner and that was Gaskin who finished the game with 202 yards on 27 carries.
“They are very physical,” linebacker Rick Gamboa said about UW’s offensive line. “They had a lot of guys returning. They have good running backs. They do what they do. They know how to fit the run. I think eventually as the game went they were wearing us down a bit. We kept fighting, kept fighting. Slowly a good team like that, they are going to crease you if you give them the chance.”
UW has an offensive line that is full of 300-pounders and future NFL draft picks. They have two draft-eligible linemen that have a good shot at going in the first three rounds of the 2018 draft.
“Those guys are martyrs,” Gaskin said about his offensive line. “Those guys love to block and play football and do that job. They did it, they put in on full display today and I couldn’t be more proud of those guys. All the love goes out to those guys. They played very well.”
When the Buffs played the Huskies in the Pac-12 Championship they had an entirely different starting three defensive linemen. All of those guys have moved on so the new guys had a shot at Washington’s vaunted offensive line.
Javier Edwards, as the anchor of the defensive line, was the key to getting penetration in the run game and was virtually ineffective for the entire game. Chris Mulumba was suspended for the first half for a targeting penalty in the UNC game but even when he came in he had no influence on stopping UW’s run game.
The Buffaloes will need to find some guys on their defensive line that can compete with the best offensive linemen in the Pac-12. If not, it’s going to be a long year for the run defense.
