BOULDER— The University of Colorado football team pounded it on the ground and launched it through the air in its first scrimmage of the fall Sunday morning in Folsom Field, much to the delight of head coach Dan Hawkins.

An estimated 1,500 fans came out to see the Buffs run through 122 live plays in just under two hours. The offense conducted 14 drives, scoring a touchdown on five of them.

“It was a little better,” Hawkins said. “The good news-bad news is you score and the defense is upset, but I’m just not used to going through a whole bunch of scrimmages and going ‘Well, OK we kicked a field goal, that was pretty stellar.’”

A pair of freshmen wide receivers started out the scoring, as Kendrick Celestine ran an end-around for a 5-yard touchdown on the first series of the day. Josh Smith hauled in a 54-yard touchdown pass from junior quarterback Nick Nelson on the third series. Smith also had a 40-yard touchdown called back because of a holding penalty.

“J-Fly (Smith) is a guy who is not short on confidence and he’s not short on speed either,” redshirt freshman quarterback Cody Hawkins said. “He is exactly the kind of guy we need because he can make plays. He is making plays himself, but he is also bringing the best out of everybody else.”

Smith, who has already made a name for himself along with Celestine and fellow freshman wide receiver Markques Simas, said he is starting to flourish in CU’s offense.

“I’m really enjoying the offense,” he said. “It’s vertical and that’s why I chose this school over a lot of other schools. I like to get out and make nice, long catches and deep catches across the middle just to test my ability. With this offense...I feel like it’s a perfect fit.”

Veteran wide receiver Patrick Williams also had a standout performance during the scrimmage, as the junior caught a pair of touchdowns—a 4-yarder and a 12-yarder—from Hawkins.

“He’s made more plays the last two days in practice than he did all last year,” offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich said.

The other score came on a 4-yard touchdown catch from freshman quarterback Matt Ballenger to sophomore fullback Jake Behrens. Overall, Hawkins said he was impressed with his running backs, who were getting open running lanes with the offense stretching the field.

“We haven’t reached perfection just yet but we got a lot better,” senior tailback Hugh Charles said. “We are getting our reads down, our blocks right and getting a lot of young guys in there.”

The quarterbacks saw a lot of action, with Nelson conducting six drives and Hawkins leading four. Ballenger was also behind center for four drives. Helfrich said there has been no big separation between Nelson and Hawkins this fall.  

“[My understanding of the offense is] way better,” Nelson said. “I can make my reads a lot more clearly now; I know exactly what’s going on. I can just make my reads and come out and do what I’ve been doing my whole life so it makes it a lot easier.

“Cody had a real good game today. He’s pushing me and hopefully I’m pushing him, so I think [the quarterback battle] is pretty close still.”

The offense also took care of the ball for the most part. There were three fumbled snaps on the day, but the only real turnover was on an interception by junior safety Ryan Walters.

“We are trying to get closer to that blue collar mentality every day and definitely over the past year we have worked towards that,” Cody Hawkins said. “I think we are getting closer and closer, but we’ve got to keep pushing.”

Scoring:

Series   1—Kendrick Celestine 5 run (Kevin Eberhart kick)

Series   3—Josh Smith 54 pass from Nick Nelson (Kevin Eberhart kick)

Series   5—Patrick Williams 8 pass from Cody Hawkins (Kevin Eberhart kick)

Series   7—Jake Behrens 4 pass from Matt Ballenger (Kevin Eberhart kick)

Series 12—Patrick Williams 12 pass from Cody Hawkins (Kevin Eberhart kick)

Time—1:47; Attendance—1500.