Breaking down the Buffaloes
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BY CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star
THE OFFENSE
Base formation: Multiple two-back
2006 per-game averages
Points: 16.5
Total yards: 290.9
Rushing yards: 173.5
Passing yards: 117.4
Turnovers lost: 1.5
Time of possession: 29:27
THE DEFENSE
Base formation: 4-3
2006 per-game averages
Points: 20.9
Total yards: 329.4
Rushing yards: 105.4
Passing yards: 224
Turnovers gained: 2
THE COACH
Dan Hawkins
Year at Colorado: first
Record: 2-9
Worth noting: Hawkins is the eighth of the last 10 Colorado coaches to post a losing record in his first season. The exceptions are Rick Neuheisel (10-2 in 1995) and Gary Barnett (7-5 in 1999). Hawkins’ team does have the lowest average margin of defeat (9.9 points) out of those 10 squads.
THE GAMERS
Mason Crosby
Position: PK Year: Sr.
Height: 6-2
Weight: 215
Worth noting: Inexcusably, he is not one of three finalists for the Lou Groza Award, which is given to the nation’s top kicker. He’s 19-for-27 on field goals, with his average miss coming from 51.8 yards out. Crosby came up less than a yard short on a 65-yarder the last time out against Iowa State.
Abraham Wright
Position: DE Year: Sr.
Height: 6-3
Weight: 245
Worth noting: Lining up on the left side, he’s third nationally with 11.5 sacks and needs 2.5 more to tie CU’s single-season record. Sixteen of Wright’s 55 tackles have been behind the line of scrimmage. He also has 16 hurries and has been credited for causing two interceptions and saving two touchdowns.
Brian Daniels
Position: G Year: Sr.
Height: 6-4
Weight: 300
Worth noting: The only offensive snap Daniels has missed out of CU’s 661 snaps this season came when he lost a shoe. He’s allowed just one sack (and 1.5 over the past three seasons) and been called for just three penalties. One of 17 NFF Scholar-Athletes, he’s a finalist for the Vincent Draddy Award with a 3.53 GPA in finance.
QUARTERBACKS
Junior Bernard Jackson has played every snap since backup James Cox, whom coaches planned to utilize more, broke a thumb three games ago at Kansas. Jackson, who played tailback and receiver and returned kickoffs last season, has 28 runs this season of at least 10 yards while totaling 661, the third most in a season for a CU quarterback. Jackson won’t wow as a passer (the Buffs ranks 117th in that category), but he’s thrown just two interceptions in his last 89 attempts.
RUNNING BACKS
Tailback Hugh Charles ranks No. 7 in the Big 12, averaging 65.3 yards rushing, while Jackson is ninth at 60.1. Senior Mell Holliday, an Omaha Benson product and cousin of NU’s Tierre Green, is coming off his first 100-yard effort (126 against Iowa State). Charles has sprinter’s speed, while Holliday is a plodder who prefers punishing would-be tacklers.
RECEIVERS
There’s not much to show for here, as freshman tight end Riar Geer leads CU with an average of just 22.5 yards per game. That’s right — 22.5. The Buffs have produced just 17 passing plays of 20 yards, their fewest since the 2002 team had 23. CU rotates its wideouts, but Alvin Barnett (19) and Patrick Williams (17) are the only ones besides Geer with more than 11 receptions.
O-LINE
Left guard Brian Daniels has started 21 straight games, while left tackle Tyler Polumbus has the next-highest streak on the team at 12 games. All-Big 12 center Mark Fenton had a 30-game streak end when he cracked a fibula at Georgia, but he played against Iowa State and could be ready for significant duty this week. Sophomore right guard Daniel Sanders started three games at the end of last season and has been a mainstay since missing this year’s opener with an injury. Right tackle Jack Tipton has come back from knee surgery required after he was injured against Nebraska last year.
D-LINE
This group is the major reason why the Buffs are No. 25 nationally against the run and allowing just 3.2 yards per carry. More than half of opponent rushes have gone for 2 yards or less. End Abraham Wright is the first player since Ron Woolfork in 1994 to record double-digit sacks in a season. Tackle George Hypolite is next in line after Wright in tackles for loss. Nose tackle Brandon Nicolas is a transfer from Notre Dame. Walter Boye-Doe moved from inside linebacker to end last year and is regarded as one of the team’s fiercest hitters.
LINEBACKERS
Inside LBs Thaddaeus Washington (31 career starts) and Jordon Dizon (33) love to face run-oriented teams. Against Oklahoma, Washington had 19 stops and Dizon 15. Washington needs four tackles against Nebraska to give CU a linebacker tandem with that many for the first time since future NFL players Ted Johnson and Matt Russell did it in 1994. Dizon needs two third-down tackles to tie the CU single-season mark of 19. OLB is Brad Jones is the team’s third-leading tackler with 67.
SECONDARY
It’d be smart to avoid right corneback Terrence Wheatley, who has five interceptions and 10 breakups. Strong safety J.J. Billingsley is just the 10th Colorado player and third defensive back at the school to record 200 solo tackles in his career. After missing five games recovering from a torn meniscus, Billingsley returned to make nine stops against Iowa State. FS Ryan Walters is No. 4 with 56 tackles.
SPECIALISTS
Mason Crosby could give “Super Toe” a run for his money any day of the week. He’s hit 66 of 87 field goals and 107 of 115 PATS en route to becoming CU’s career scoring leader. During his career, Crosby is 12-for-14 on three-pointers in the final 91/2 minutes of the fourth quarter (the misses were from 63 and 65 yards). Freshman punter Matt DiLallo is fourth in the Big 12 averaging 43.6 yards. The Buffs aren’t getting much from punt or kickoff returns. CU ranks 100th and 94th, respectively, in those categories. Stephone Robinson has handled both duties for most of the season, and averaged just 5.1 yards on punts and 17.4 on kickoffs. No wonder Chase McBride (9.8 yards on punt returns) and Terry Washington (19.9 on kickoffs) have been elevated recently.
SCOUTING REPORT
From Kansas State coach Ron Prince, who watched Josh Freeman produce a Big 12 offensive player of the week performance by completing 22 of 26 passes for 251 yards and two scores to fuel the Wildcats to a 34-21 win in Boulder, Colo., on Nov. 4. CU’s Bernard Jackson rushed for 105 yards to lead a 225-yard ground attack, and Colorado scored all of its points and gained 306 of its 370 yards after trailing 17-0 at halftime.
“Offensively, Colorado had a running back that had our complete attention. Hugh Charles, not only does he have the elite speed, he has the ability to really run in creases, not necessarily even holes, so that makes him very dangerous. He has good vision, and he has the ability to go all the way.
"The thing that hurt us was the quarterback running game. In the first half we played the run very well; we really kept them without much offense at all. In the second half, (because of) Bernard Jackson’s ability to run the fooball, not only just off of scrambles but in a very organized and orchestrated manner, Colorado was able to give us quite a bit of trouble. I think that was the difference in the game with them coming back and making a real strong push.
“I’m very impressed with their quarterback. He’s a very tough, physical player, and at that position when you can have that kind of player who leads the charge and carries the flag for your team, I think you have something really exciting. We had seen him be very dangerous with the ball under his arm, but for the first time there were runs other than just your typical sprintouts and option type of plays that many people do. There was much more of a emphasis of the quarterback running game. They made a very concentrated effort to make him the premier focus back in the second half, and it worked.
“In the weeks leading up to it, I think that our offensive coordinator and everybody around Josh (Freeman) had started to put together the kind of game plan that would help Josh, help him highlight his abilities. But I think we were able to get off to a nice start and Josh was able to get into a rhythm, and those players around him really broke some tackles, made some plays. Everyone played a very solid game around him, which allowed his statistical numbers, 22-of-25, or whatever the numbers were, to be so impressive. I think there were a variety of things that we tried to do. We tried to have a lot of balance, run and pass, and then also a lot of balance and variety within the type of passes that we threw, not just of the dropback variety.”
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