A lot of players for the Colorado football team contributed to Friday’s 44-7 rout of Colorado State.
On Monday, the Pac-12 Conference honored one of those players, as quarterback Sefo Liufau earned offensive player of the week honors.
“It’s a great feeling,” Liufau said. “If anything, that’s just a testament to how well the offense played and how my guys around me played, as well.”
It’s the first time Liufau has received a conference player of the week award and just the seventh weekly honor for the Buffs in their six Pac-12 seasons. Liufau is the first CU offensive player to earn the award since Paul Richardson in 2013.
For Liufau, the honor is a perfect cap to his first game back from injury. After spending the offseason rehabilitating a left foot injury, he completed 23-of-33 passes for 318 yards and a touchdown against the Rams. He also ran 14 times for 66 yards.
In the process, he became CU’s all-time leading passer (7,715 career yards) and now owns or shares 78 records at CU.
It wasn’t a perfect performance for Liufau, who did fumble twice. Overall, though, he was pleased with his return to the field.
“For it to be the first game back, I know I missed a couple throws and I had a couple fumbles, which is pretty frustrating, but for the most part, I was really satisfied with how I was running the ball, passing, making checks and everything,” he said. “There’s room to improve, but I was definitely satisfied with Week 1.”
Head coach Mike MacIntyre was pleased with Liufau’s performance, as well.
“He played really well,” MacIntyre said. “He had a couple of throws, if he would have made those he might have had a couple more touchdowns, but that happens. He made a lot of plays, too, a lot of great plays. He got us into a lot of the right situations, made some good checks.”
Oregon linebacker Troy Dye was the Pac-12 defensive player of the week, while Utah punter Mitch Wishnowsky was the special teams player of the week.