Three takeaways from Colorado's 35-13 loss at Arizona State

TEMPE, Ariz. — Saturday was another tough night for CU fans.

The Colorado Buffaloes lost 35-13 to the Arizona State Sun Devils in a late-night matchup at Sun Devil Stadium. The game was the third-consecutive loss for Colorado after a season-opening win against FCS Northern Colorado.

Here’s what we saw.

The offense got… better?

The Colorado offense was better than what we’d seen over the past couple of weeks.

To be fair, that isn’t a particularly high standard.

The Buffs managed 250 yards of offense with about 75% of it coming on the ground. Alex Fontenot led the way with 65 yards on 14 attempts, and he scored Colorado’s only touchdown since the first quarter of the Texas A&M game two weeks ago.

Jarek Broussard, again, couldn’t get himself going. He put up 35 yards on 12 carries and he caught a pass for seven more. It’s been a slow start to the season for the Pac-12’s reigning offensive player of the year and he’s too talented not to break through at some point in the next few weeks.

The offensive line continued to struggle.

Quarterback Brendon Lewis completed seven of his 17 pass attempts for 67 yards. A couple of the incompletions were drops from his receivers. He made a great throw to Montana Lemonious-Craig through a tight window on the sideline.

Still, despite a baby step forward in his development, there’s so much left to be desired.

All together, the Buffs at least stressed the Sun Devil defense in a way they weren’t capable of against Minnesota. They made it across midfield five times. They earned positive rushing yards. These are small wins but if Colorado continues to improve on these numbers week-in and week-out, they’ll have an offense that can win some games by the end of the year.

The CU offense is in a dark place and the goal in the near future has to be growth and not necessarily success.

The defense made some mistakes

Colorado’s defense is capable of great things—as was evidenced against Texas A&M—but it was pretty average on Saturday.

Containing Jayden Daniels, one of the conference’s elite quarterbacks, is no easy task and he showed why on Saturday. The junior put up 236 yards on 18-of-25 passing, plus another 75 yards and two touchdowns on the ground.

Three ASU receivers each put up more yardage than Colorado’s entire passing attack combined.

Arizona State also ran for 167 yards on a 5.2-yards-per-carry average.

Simply put, Colorado’s defense must play better to give the team a chance to win. It isn’t fair that the defense has to pick up the slack for a lackluster offense, but it’s the world we live in.

If the Buffs give up three or four touchdowns, they probably won’t win. Giving up five is a death sentence, at least until the offense shows some sort of explosive capability.

Nate Landman managed another double-digit performance.

Christian Gonzalez continued his high level of play this season and added a tackle for loss against a jet sweep in space.

Terrance Lang lived in the backfield but he didn’t always capitalize…

The penalties are back

Colorado racked up the penalties on Saturday, just like it did in the season opener against Northern Colorado.

The two most notable penalties came from Lang.

On one, Lang sacked Daniels but grabbed him by the facemark first.

On the other, Lang provided pressure but was called for roughing the passer.

Both penalties were on third downs and extended the drives. Both of those drives resulted in touchdowns. Take away those two scores and A&M would have scored 21 points. That means Colorado would have needed one more score to tie the game.

Obviously that’s an oversimplification but it shows just how much a couple of mistakes can cost a team.

All told, Colorado was called for nine penalties worth 100 yards. Two other penalties were declined.

If Colorado pulls out a win, the margins will be slim. This isn’t a team that can afford to give up yardage without a fight.