Boulder, CU – The Colorado Buffs broke a nine-game losing streak against Washington, in a close defensive win for their final home game of the season.
Colorado entered halftime with a 13-0 lead, but the Huskies scored early in the third quarter. The Buffs responded with another touchdown, and the Huskies scored one more time early in the fourth quarter. Resulting in the end-score, 20-14.
Before this game, the defense allowed an average of 32.3 points-per-game, which led to some high-scoring games that resulted in Colorado losing. In the past two games, the defense turned their season around, allowing 13.5 per game.
The Buffs defense held the Huskies to 238 yards, and sacked Huskies quarterback Jacob Eason five times, and intercepted him once.
An attacking defense that stops the run is exactly what Buffs head coach Mel Tucker wants out of his defense.
And according to the stats, this is exactly what the defense offered during Washington, allowing them on only 6-17 third-down conversions.
“You got to hold people to low numbers if you want to win games,” said Tucker on the differences between this defense now, and earlier in the season, “You want to beat good football teams, you can’t five up 30-points a game.”
Quarterback Steven Montez broke the record for the most touchdowns in Buffs history in his final home game on a throw and catch that almost seemed impossible.
As Montez dropped back to pass, the rush got to him, but that didn’t stop him from throwing a ball towards the back of the end-zone. The ball was overthrown slightly, but that didn’t stop receiver Laviska Shenault from catching the ball.
“Just an amazing catch,” said Montez which he referred to as, “the Laviska Shenault effect.”
Because the game was controlled by the Buffs defense, the Colorado offense ran the ball on their terms, rushing for over 207 yards. This is important to Tucker’s philosophy as he plans to continue this trend in the final game and for future seasons.
Next week the Buffs head to No 7 Utah and get to play the spoiler role with a victory.
