Colorado Buffaloes football (Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)
In a Los Angeles Times story this week, UCLA sophomore defensive end Takkarist McKinley (6-foot-4, 230 pounds) accused Colorado’s offensive linemen of playing “dirty.”
The Buffs, McKinley said, “try to chop block you. They try to tear your ACL. … To them, itap their job. To me, itap pretty dirty.”
Media access to CU players and coaches ends on Wednesday of each week. But CU sports information director David Plati was kind enough Thursday to get me a response from Buffs offensive line coach Gary Bernardi.
Bernardi disputed McKinley’s claim.
“We try to teach our kids aggressiveness within the rules,” Bernardi said. “We would never teach them to ‘high-low’ a defender. Generally speaking, thatap what injuries result from. We don’t teach it, and we haven’t been called for a penalty for it all year.”
My take: McKinley sounds like a sophomore. Most upperclassmen would never dare talk about the potential of injuries or give the opponent possible “bulletin board” material.
Colorado hosts the 25th-ranked Bruins at noon Saturday.
