CU Buffs Wednesday practice notes

Surely you are used to our post-practice videos by now, but we had some technical difficulties today, so here are some highlights from post-practice in the video’s place.

Head coach Mike MacIntyre on what has to happen for the Buffs to beat Utah:

“Keep them out of the end zone and score more points than they do *laughs*. You have to be able to stop their quarterback, he’s a good runner and he does good things there. Defensively, they have a really good front four that pressure the quarterback, so we have to be able to keep the pressure off our quarterback.”

MacIntyre on the effect losing Devontae Booker has had on Utah’s offense:

“I am pretty sure they’d like to say it hasn’t [effected them] and so would everybody else, but I thought he was, to me, the best running back in the league coming back. There are some really good running backs in the league, but I thought overall power, strength, speed, how they relied on him, how he actually could just take a game over, you knew they were going to hand it to him and he could still make plays. He is that kind of back and I think anytime you lose a guy like that it is tough.”

MacIntyre on if the loss of Booker was a big reason Utah was only able to score nine points last week:

“I think it had to be. He is a really good player. The other running back had over 100 yards so he is really good also, but Booker just kind of had that mentality to put it on his back and had a little bit of a cockiness to him. Just give me the ball I’ll win the game type of thing. So I think that did hurt them a little. He is a heck of a player.”

Defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt on what the Buffs need to do, from a defensive standpoint, to win the game:

“Well, they’re going to try to run the ball on us, we have to do a great job there and we certainly have to do a great job stopping explosive plays.”

Leavitt on how the run defense has been overall:

“Good and bad but overall I’ve bee really happy with how they’ve progressed throughout the year, I really have been, I’ve been encouraged.