The Colorado Buffaloes have recently featured an impressive trio of Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter and Jimmy Horn Jr. But this electrifying combination is also the reason why they travel to Lincoln as underdogs to face Nebraska: three players alone are simply not enough.
In Week 1, Colorado narrowly escaped an unexpected loss to North Dakota State. The Bison were just four yards away from an upset as the clock ran out.
Hunter, who excelled both offensively and defensively, had seven catches for 132 yards and three touchdowns while playing almost nonstop. Horn contributed 198 yards and a touchdown, while Sanders threw for the second-most yards of his career at Colorado (445). Interestingly, he set his career high (510) in last year’s season opener.
All of those performances were necessary to barely make it against an FCS team, albeit an excellent one. The Buffaloes still have major problems on their offensive line. Last season, they ranked last in rushing yards per game (68.9), and the line allowed Sanders to be sacked 52 times. Despite coach Deion Sanders’ efforts to use the transfer portal to gamble on offensive linemen, the running game is still ineffective. Last week, they averaged 2.3 yards on 23 attempts, with the biggest gain being just 11 yards.
That is unlikely to improve against Nebraska, whose run defense was among the top 10 in the country last year and is expected to be even stronger this season.
Nebraska also has a new offensive strategy aimed at wearing down Colorado’s weak pass defense, which allowed more than 275 passing yards per game last year and just gave up 292 against NDSU. Freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola threw more against UTEP last week than Nebraska did in the first two and a half games of last season combined. In fact, Raiola completed more passes in Week 1 than Nebraska attempted in all but three games last year.
Nebraska also had 223 rushing yards, which doesn’t bode well for a Colorado team that allowed 157 yards against an FCS team in Boulder.
