BOULDER — Trailing 3-0 at halftime, Colorado used some trickery early in the third quarter to finally get on the board Saturday against Kansas.
On third-and-1 from the Kansas 27, quarterback Cody Hawkins faked a fumble by holding the ball low to the ground as he ran back in the pocket. That froze Kansas linebackers, and Hawkins found senior tight end Tyson DeVree running alone down the middle for an easy pitch-and-catch touchdown.
Hawkins said the offense practiced that gadget play during the week in practice against the scout team.
“I just drop back and pretend that I fumble by running the ball on the ground,” Hawkins explained. “I just had to wait until the safety came up and then dump the ball to Tyson.
“The key was ‘Girth’ yelling, ‘Fumble! Fumble! Fumble!”‘ Hawkins added, referring to center Daniel Sanders.
Buffs forced Kansas to run. Kansas had to adjust for Colorado’s strategy to stop sophomore quarterback Todd Reesing. Colorado rarely blitzed and dropped its linebackers often. Kansas tailback Jake Sharp gained only 53 yards on 15 carries, but Reesing scrambled for a game-high 84 yards, including a 53-yarder that set up Kansas’ opening field goal.
“Colorado came in with the thought that they weren’t going to let him throw the ball,” Kansas coach Mark Mangino said. “So we ran the football. They lightened the box up. They got into some fronts that we realized they were trying to take away some routes that we’ve been good at and did a good job with it.
“But they gave us an opportunity to run the ball.”
Quotable quote. “I’m not going to say if we’re for real or not,” Mangino said. “You watch the games. You see if we’re for real.”
Unquotable quote. Mangino, on the defensive delay-of-game penalty on a punt that gave Colorado a first down and led to its first touchdown for a 7-3 lead: “No comment.”
Kansas received a penalty for a defender lining directly over the head of Colorado’s long snapper.
Footnotes. CU coach Dan Hawkins said his players knew about the death of former Buffs tight end Tennyson McCarty, whose body was found near a vehicle parked in a turnout northeast of Peaceful Valley. He apparently died sometime between Thursday night and Friday afternoon. Police do not suspect foul play. Among his survivors is older brother Eric McCarty, a physician and former Colorado player who serves as CU’s director of sports medicine….Cody Hawkins has now thrown a touchdown in all eight games. The school record is nine, set by Koy Detmer in 1996. … CU senior tailback Hugh Charles had his string of 100-yard games snapped at four. He netted just 39 yards on 11 carries against Kansas, with a long gain of 11 yards.
Kansas’ 19 points were more than 31 less than its season average of 50.33, good for second in the nation. Its 333 yards were 182.83 under its average of 515.83, good for seventh….This marked the fifth time this season Kansas has shut out its opponent in the first half.
