BOULDER — The drive became a game of “can you top this” between Colorado running backs. And perhaps no one had more fun watching it than head coach Mike MacIntyre, who, for at least one week, didn’t have to field questions about how he’d jump-start the run game. It was already humming like a brand new Ferrari.
The drive in focus was CU’s last of the first half, and it looked like this:
Run, run, run, pass, run, run, run, run.
Touchdown.
Phillip Lindsay burst through a seam for the biggest gain of the jaunt, 37 yards. Each player to touch the ball after that seemed to run harder than the previous.
And through it all, the Buffs figured something out: They liked it.
Colorado’s 48-14 win over Massachusetts on Saturday at Folsom Field was as satisfying as their loss to Hawaii the week before was disappointing. And they needed it. Badly. The Buffs hadn’t won a game since Sept. 20, 2014, a string of 357 days between victories.
CU didn’t reinvent the wheel Saturday. If anything, they turned back the clock in how they got things done. A normally pass-happy offense rediscovered smash mouth football. The running game led the charge and was so punishing that it chewed up 390 yards, produced two 100-yard rushers in Michael Adkins (119) and Christian Powell (105), and even saw the quarterback, Sefo Liufau, power in his first career rushing touchdown.
CU hadn’t had over 300 rushing yards in a game since 2007, and hadn’t had two rushers over 100 since Brian Lockridge and Rodney Stewart turned the trick against Hawaii in 2010.
It was that kind of day.
And it took the Buffs about a quarter to truly commit to it.
Once they did, things got easier for an offense that didn’t always look in-sync in the air. They scored their first four touchdowns on the ground, which brought the season total to six consecutive touchdowns on the ground without a passing score. The last time a CU team started a season like that was in 1990, which ended … well we’re getting way ahead of ourselves.
These Buffs are striving to put one good play after another together, one good drive after another, one good game after another. They are baby steps, and CU was taking some of them against a game, yet overmatched UMass squad.
The Minutemen had the game tied at 14 early in the second quarter before they were blitzed by 34 unanswered points by the Buffs. CU did get its first passing score of the year in the third quarter — an 18-yard Liufau to Nelson Spruce hookup that put the game way out of reach.
Meanwhile, the defense bent but never truly broke. There were some hair-raising moments early, like the UMass scoring drive that featured third-down conversions of 15, 23 and 18 yards. The last ended up in a touchdown.
But those were the last truly bad moments for the defense, which produced arguably the biggest play of the game in the second quarter. UMass, down 24-14, had driven down to the CU 10-yard line, threatening to close the deficit. But Ryan Moeller stepped up and picked off a pass in the end zone, ending the threat. CU scored on the ensuing drive and the game was never in doubt after that.
