BOULDER — Lincoln Riley got the Buffs right. And he knew it. Heck, he darn near admitted it.
“They obviously RPO-ed some in the run game, you know, they did commit to it a lot more than they have in the previous game,” USC’s visored head coach said after CU piled up the program’s most rushing yards in two years on his unbeaten Trojans, who held on for a 48-41 victory at Folsom Field.
“So obviously, (I’d) have to go back and look at the tape, but they put you in some of those positions where it’s either going to be one-on-one on the perimeter, if you get those extra hats to the run game, or you’re going to give them potentially favorable numbers in the box.”
The Trojans (5-0, 3-0 Pac-12) went with the latter. And it was enough to hold off the Buffs (3-2, 0-2) for a 17th straight time, with 12 of those wins coming as members of the Pac-12. Neither USC nor CU will be a part of that affiliation next fall, with the former moving to the Big Ten and the latter to the Big 12 in 2024.
As intraleague finales go, this one had plenty of fireworks. Although the big blasts came from the Trojans early and the Buffs late.
A duel of Heisman Trophy-contending quarterbacks, USC’s Caleb Williams (403 passing yards, six TDs) got the last laugh. But CU signal-caller Shedeur Sanders and his teammates had the Trojans sweating late.
With touchdowns on five of their first seven possessions, the Men of Troy took it to CU early in a similar fashion to what the Oregon Ducks did in handing the Buffs their first loss in Eugene the weekend prior. While the Buffs struggled to find any footing, missing a short field goal, getting a punt blocked and granting the visitors a short field on a Sanders interception, USC shot out to leads of 34-7 in the second quarter and 41-14 midway through the third stanza.
“We have to come out smoking and ready to (go),” Buffs coach Deion Sanders reflected. “When we come out of the locker room, we have to be ready … that’s going to have to come from the coaching staff, as well as those (coordinators) to make sure they put us in the right situation so that we’re ready to go.”
For the second straight game, the Buffs weren’t. But when footing was finally found, it was rooted in the run game.
Using a combination of bruising Anthony Hankerson (16 carries, 74 yards, one score) and shifty Dylan Edwards (12 carries, 44 yards) at tailback, CU flashed some nifty RPO (run-pass option) sleight of hand with quarterback Shedeur Sanders (14 carries, 50 yards) that left USC guessing all afternoon. And often guessing wrong.
“We had some missed tackles in the backfield a couple of times where they came out that we didn’t get gapped out,” Riley continued. “Give them credit. They were a lot more patient and stayed with (the run game) more than they had certainly in previous games.
“And I thought they did a good job of staying with it even when we got way up and (were) running the ball. I mean, we weren’t great on the offensive line, I didn’t think, didn’t play our best game up front. We missed a couple of holes.”
The Buffs’ run game, meanwhile, kept humming long enough to open up plays over the top via Sanders’ arm that aided CU’s comeback from 41-14 down in the third quarter.
“We’re still searching for an identity,” Coach Prime said after his squad dropped a second-straight game to a top-10 foe.
But in using the ground game to set up the pass, a twist on previous CU offensive scripts, the Buffs might have found one.
And one to keep.
CU nearly matched their entire 2023 rushing output to date (223 yards over four games) in one tilt, piling up 193 yards on 45 carries. The Buffs doubled USC’s rushing numbers (95 yards), even though the Trojans came into Saturday tied for second in the Pac-12 in rushing TDs (11) and fifth in rush yards per game (192).
“It wasn’t really even what I saw,” the younger Sanders reflected after the game. “It was basically just following (my) keys and always having an understanding of what the play call is and executing it. These are the same plays we’ve been running forever. Everybody runs ‘Power,’ everybody runs ‘Zone,’ and that’s what it is. It’s about just the players executing it. I feel (Saturday) we had a better mindset and understood, oh, we’ve got to execute these plays for (it) to be able to work and that’s what we did. We’ve just got to it quicker.”
The Buffs actually piled up more rush attempts in the second half (23) than they did in the first (22), and this was after digging a 34-14 hole at the halftime break. Which led several folks inside the CU camp to ask, justifiably, can you imagine how much fun that ground-and-pound with Hankerson and Edwards might be if the Buffs were up two scores and not playing catch-up?
“Hankerson stood out. Hank is resilient,” Buffs coach Deion Sanders said of one of the few offensive holdouts from the ’22 CU offense who remained with the program during The Coach Prime Roster Makeover. “All these (new tailbacks) came in and tried to force him out and he wouldn’t let them.”
Sanders’ trust has to be earned. Despite competition from a deep positional room that includes much-lauded transfers Alton McCaskill (ex-Houston) and Sy’veon Wilkerson (Jackson State), it’s clear that Hankerson, a sophomore out of Boynton Beach, Fla., is becoming Coach Prime’s change-of-pace back of choice.
“Give them credit,” Riley said. “(The Buffs) made some really tremendous competitive plays, a couple of plays where our guys were right there, and they made the play.
“And that (happens a) lot of time when you have two good teams and really good individual players out there. That’s what it comes down to, are those competitive plays. And we certainly didn’t make as many. And had a lot of mental errors in the second half.”
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