After winning only one game in 2022, then four after Deion Sanders took over as head coach last year, the Buffaloes are now sitting 6-2 overall and already bowl eligible—almost a full week before Halloween! Not only that, but they are now ranked No. 23 nationally and are sitting fourth in the Big-12 behind No. 9 BYU, No. 11 Iowa State, and No. 17 Kansas State. As far as the rest of the PAC-12 that joined the Big-12? Well, Arizona State is sitting 9th, Arizona 12th, with Utah—picked preseason to win the conference and make it into the 12-team playoff—currently sitting 13th.
In this one after holding Cincinnati to a three-and-out on their first possession, Colorado would get out in front and never relinquish the lead. In the first half the Buffaloes scored all four times they had possession of the ball, three touchdowns and one field goal with Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders starting off with 15 consecutive completions and hitting Travis Hunter for two of those TD’s and running the other one in himself. Cincinnati would finally get it going and score back-to-back TD’s on their second and third possessions, making it a 24-14 game at the break. Colorado would hold the Bearcats scoreless in the third quarter while adding another seven points to the scoreboard on a 7 yard TD run by Sophomore RB Isaiah Augusta to make it a 31-14 game after three. Cincinnati would score twice in the 4th Qtr, first on a Nathan Hawks 32 yard field goal with 9:20 and then again after holding the Buffaloes to a three-and-out at the end of an 11 play 81 yard drive and Brendon Sorsby TD pass to Joe Royer to make it 31-23. But with just four minutes left in the game the Bearcats wouldn’t get the ball again until Colorado’s Alejandro Mata kicked a 47 yard field goal with less than two minutes left and giving us our final score of 34-23 after a failed 4th down conversion attempt by Cincinnati with less than a minute left.
Colorado did a good job of getting their running game going while also allowing only one sack of their QB. Shedeur connected on 80% of his throws for 323 yards and 2 TD’s—both to Travis Hunter. On the ground Sophomore RB’s Isaiah Augustave and Dallan Hayden combined for 127 yards on 32 attempts with Augustave and Sanders picking up a rushing TD each. For Cincinnati QB Brendan Sorsby, who came into the game with a completion percentage of 70% and an average of 265 yards per game, was held to just 53% for 180 yards, 2 TD’s and no interceptions while also rushing 9 times for 48 more yards. Senior RB Corey Kiner led the way on the ground for the Bearcats carrying the ball 17 times for 94 of their 171 total yards with Junior RB Evan Pryor picking up their only rushing TD.