The Colorado Buffaloes forced FOUR turnovers against USC, and still managed to lose 21-17 to the Trojans. How did that come about? Let us count the ways.
1. Colorado gave up more than 500 yards to the Trojans.
Much has been made of the fact that the Buffaloes do not use their tight ends for anything other than blocking. It's certainly OK to not have tight ends be used for catching passes, but Colorado seems to think that nobody else uses their tight ends to catch passes either. In their two losses so far this season, the Buffs were lit up over and over by tight ends.
Against Michigan, All-American Jake Butt was wide open so often one would have thought he was wearing a stealth jersey that made him invisible to Colorado defenders. Butt caught seven passes for 87 yards, and was the only Wolverine player with more than two catches.
USC scored three touchdowns in their victory of Colorado. All three were scored by wide open tight ends. Daniel Imatorbhebhe and Tyler Petite only caught a total of four passes between them, but their 3 TD's provided all the scoring the Trojans would need to win their 11th straight against Colorado.
2. Colorado needs to work on their tackling.
One of the most frustrating things of watching the game was the sheer number of times that the Buffaloes hit a Trojan player behind the line of scrimmage or well short of a first down... only to have the SC player squirt away for positive yardage or gain another back-breaking first down.
Despite all the numerous times the Buffs hit the ball carrier behind the line of scrimmage, the Buffs ended the game with only ONE tackle for a loss on the day. The failure to wrap up Trojan ball carriers kept the Buffs D on their heels all day long.
3. The Colorado coaches failed to call long pass plays (The Buffs bread and butter) until too late in the game.
Colorado could not get their ground game going because the Trojans were crowding the line of scrimmage with up to SEVEN defenders. It made it nearly impossible to run on the Trojans and the Buffs play callers chose to have their QB's only throw short passes (until late in the game), allowing the USC defensive backs to have their men in front of them for most of the afternoon.
Even the TV announcers (not normally known for their insight) kept commenting that Colorado needed to spread the field in order to keep the Trojans from loading up the line of scrimmage. Unfortunately, the Buffs did not start doing it until late in the game. It allowed the Buffs to come back from a 14 point deficit, but it turned out to be too little too late.
Buffs QB's ended the game with a paltry 4.3 yards per attempt (less than half their average) and only 7.7 yards per completion. Their longest completion from the QB position was for 22 yards.
Worst of all, one of the "throwaway" deep passes was on the Buffs' last possession. Instead of working for a first down and eating the clock to send the game into overtime, the Buffs instead wasted a down to force third and long. They failed to convert and then chose to kick a field goal. It pulled them within four but they never got the ball back.
4. It was quite obvious that USC coaches came in with specific game plans both offensively and defensively designed to defeat Colorado.
USC crowded the box defensively from the the beginning of the game and dared Colorado's twin offensive coordinators to adjust. They didn't until too late in the game and by then it was too late.
Offensively, the Trojans were only stopped by turnovers. They only punted three times all day. Poor tackling by the Buffaloes let the Trojans hold on to the ball time and time again when they should have been forced to punt.
And when USC got close to pay dirt, they unleashed their tight ends and Colorado acted as if they did not know tight ends were eligible receivers.
5. Lastly, Pac-12 officials are, at best, horribly inconsistent. At worst, they are completely incompetent. #Pac-12OfficialsSuck
The entire USC team was penalized twice on the day (the same number of times the Colorado center was penalized for snap infractions).
The Colorado punter was hammered on one play, but the call was not a personal foul. It was only a 5 yard penalty and was ultimately declined.
On another punt, the official threw a flag for hitting the returner on a fair catch EVEN though the player that hit the returner was on his own team. Granted, after a referee conference they picked up the flag, but did so after inexplicably concluding that the Colorado player was blocked into the returner. The CU player was blocked toward the returner, but managed to avoid hitting him. It was the USC blocker who smashed into his own guy.
Normally, if any team was playing good clean football, one would point to their excellent coaching. In this case, however, the officiating was just awful. The holding being done by the USC offensive team was as blatant as it was uncalled by the refs.
Conclusions?
The Colorado coaches better get on this promptly. Pac-12 coaches adjust very quickly to fellow coaches who fail to adapt their play calling. Arizona State's Todd Graham is coming to town with his Sun Devils next Saturday and they are looking to take Colorado out of first place in the South division. And Graham is one of the best in the conference at attacking weaknesses in game planning.
Colorado coaches are not the only ones not adjusting. David Shaw at Stanford is learning this the hard way, and his Cardinal have given up 86 points in the last two weeks. It could be worse, however. He could be Mark Helfrich, whose Oregon Ducks have given up 162 points in the last three games.
Meanwhile, Washington State has come storming back after two losses to open the season to win three in a row. Even Oregon State's Gary Andersen seems to be turning the corner. His Beavers won their first conference game since 2014. They did it by shutting down Cal's Bear Raid offense in a game which featured 791 yards of RUSHING!
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