BERKELEY, Calif. — Colorado will face bigger defensive lines this season than California’s front. But as for speed, the Buffaloes had better hope none is faster.
CU quarterback Tyler Hansen was sacked six times Saturday. When Hansen was able to escape, he was prone to making mistakes — often out of desperation. Cal scored 31 of its 52 points off five Buffs turnovers.
“Cal’s a lot faster and more athletic than Colorado State was,” Hansen said, referring to the previous week’s 24-3 victory over the Rams. “We knew that coming in. But their speed surprised us a little bit. We underestimated how fast they were. I think that was the biggest key.”
This is supposed to be the year that Colorado’s now-veteran offensive line not only jells but dominates. The Buffs’ blocking front five includes two seniors and two juniors. Senior left tackle Nate Solder made the Playboy preseason All-American Team and junior right guard Ryan Miller was picked to the preseason all-Big 12 first team. But in the trenches, Colorado’s side of the ball looked overmatched.
Even Solder had a rough day. And that’s being polite. The 6-foot-9, 315-pounder from Buena Vista allowed two sacks and committed a false-start penalty.
“I didn’t play as well as I could have,” Solder said. “They had good speed; that was part of the problem. There were a number of other things too. We just didn’t get things going the way we should have.”
Cal’s defense employs a 3-4 alignment, with one of the linebackers becoming the fourth pass rusher on any given play. Solder had a particularly tough time staying in front of outside linebacker Jarred Price, who stands just 5-11 but is built, like Denver Broncos star Elvis Dumervil, for speed.
“That made it hard on me. He was under me,” Solder said. “I had to be that much quicker.”
Several CU players and coaches said Buffs receivers quite often gained separation, but Hansen simply did not have time to get them the ball.
“We thought we had an advantage at each receiver position,” CU senior wideout Scotty McKnight said. “I can control what I can control. We need to do better on offense. We were killing our defense today (by giving it poor field position).”
Colorado offensive coordinator Eric Kiesau agreed that the problems started up front.
“(Cal defenders) were very fast, very strong, a lot of speed off the edge,” Kiesau said. “We were having a hard time getting all (our offensive linemen) to stand on them. It was tough at the beginning because of the speed of the game.
“We were ready for the pressure. We just had to kind of figure out where it was coming from. We just tried to protect (the quarterback) as best we could.”
Cal pass rushers also had some tricks up their sleeves.
“Their D-line and linebackers are really good,” Hansen said. “They did some things defensively that confused our O-line a little bit. But we’ll clean that up for next week.”
Tom Kensler: 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com
