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BOULDER聽— College football coaches are the type who protect their play calls as if they were nuclear codes.

The pervading paranoia about having play calls stolen has created creative methods of signaling, from coaches or players using giant cards with seemingly random pictures on the sideline to backup quarterbacks waving their arms like inflatable mascots you see at a used car dealership. It all leaves defenses left to gauge what’s real and what’s subterfuge.

So Colorado coach Mike MacIntyre isn’t about to let the world know exactly how the Buffaloes are using signals to ramp up the tempo of their offense, but he did offer a glimpse ahead of the team’s home opener Saturday against Idaho State.

“We’ve implemented a couple things that help us go a little faster communication and signal-wise,” MacIntyre said. “The way we signal, the way we look at it聽with聽our code words, we shortened everything down. One word means tons of things now. Our kids know the offense so well that we’ve been able to streamline that. We have very quick signals now. All of that helps.”

Whether it’s shorter words, or smarter players, the Buffs were moving at a noticeably faster pace during last week’s 44-7 victory over Colorado State than at any other time during the MacIntyre era.

There was rarely time to steal a glimpse of a replay on the jumbotron聽before the next snap.

“They were going extremely fast, and we weren鈥檛 getting lined up,” CSU coach Mike Bobo said. 聽“Guys were looking to the sidelines. You have to give them credit, they were doing a great job of changing their formation from trips looks to doubles looks to empty looks. We weren鈥檛 getting adjusted.”

It’s not as if Colorado hasn’t moved with good pace in the past. Last season, CU ranked 20th in the country averaging 79.7 plays per game. Only Washington State (83.1) ran more plays among Pac-12 teams. Against CSU, the Buffs reeled off 90 plays. Their average drive: 2 minutes, 32 seconds.

Much of the Buffs’ desire to move faster stems from their late-game failures last season. This offseason, CU coaches stressed the need to more quickly get the ball into the hands of playmakers in order to take the pressure down the stretch off of quarterback Sefo Liufau, who has had issues turning the ball over.

“I think the biggest thing is that a lot of teams can’t practice tempo at that speed,” said Liufau, who completed 22-of-33 passes for 318 yards against CSU. “You can’t get your scout teams to go over there and run at that speed and tempo. Teams coming into Folsom this year, it’ll be a bigger challenge for them given the altitude. Hopefully, we can use that to our advantage. When we have to we can slow it down, but our main goal as an offense was to control tempo and the defense, and when they can and can’t sub players onto the field.”