Buffs Take Aim At Addressing Details On Offense
September 04, 2017 | Football, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — Mike MacIntyre's message to the Colorado Buffaloes Monday morning was simple.
If the Buffs can fix the little things, big things will happen — on both sides of the ball.
Not that MacIntyre wasn't pleased with the overall result of the Buffs' season opener, a 17-3 win over in-state rival Colorado State on Friday. But after a weekend of reviewing film, MacIntyre and his assistants saw plenty of room for improvement.
"So many little things we can improve on from the game that could have been big things for us," MacIntyre said after Monday morning's practice, the Buffs' first in preparation for Saturday's home opener against Texas State (Noon, Pac-12 Networks). "And there's things that we did in the game if we don't correct now, the next team will exploit."
Many of those "little things" happened on the offensive side of the ball against the Rams. After scoring on three straight possessions early in the game, the Buffs then spent the rest of the evening suffering from a host of self-inflicted wounds that kept them from adding to their point total for much of the second quarter and the entire second half.
"We moved the ball well, we just made some small mistakes down there," MacIntyre said. "We either missed a block, didn't call it out correctly, didn't sit in the pocket and throw it to the right guy, dropped a ball, that type of thing. When they watch it on film, they're like 'Oh, you've got to be kidding me.' They'll learn from that. … We'll make a difference and we'll keep going. We'll play better in those situations and have more plays made which will turn into more points."
It's not as if Colorado's offense wasn't productive for much of the night. CU finished with 143 yards rushing and 202 yards in the air. But after their initial scoring drives, the Buffs couldn't muster sustained possessions again, with two drives ending on turnovers (both interceptions) and others done in by quarterback sacks (CU's Steven Montez was sacked five times).
"A couple times he got out of the pocket and made some great plays and a couple times he should have stayed in the pocket," MacIntyre said of Montez. "He's got to learn that and feel that, and understand where we are on the field. If he understood where we were on the field, you run up there and get back to the line of scrimmage and we're still in field goal range. Those are things that you have to kind of learn."
Still, MacIntyre said, the Buffs don't want to negate Montez's playmaking ability. CU's second touchdown of the night came when he was flushed from the pocket, rolled to his left and then made a beautiful throw back across the field to Shay Fields for a 31-yard touchdown. Montez also had a nice throw on the run for a 28-yard gain to Jay MacIntyre that got them out of a deep hole on their side of the field, and had another scramble and throw that would have resulted in a first down at midfield had the pass not been bobbled and taken away by a CSU defensive back for an interception.
"You don't want to take away the athleticism and the playmaking ability," MacIntyre said. "You have to be careful on how you coach that. You don't want to take away a guy's stinger and his abilities."
One Buffs position coach who saw plenty of room for improvement was offensive line coach Klayton Adams. This year's O-line is one that MacIntyre has said repeatedly should be the best the Buffs have had in his five years in Boulder — but Friday, they showed only flashes of that kind of ability.
"No. 1 we have to play with better fundamentals," Adams said Monday morning. "No. 2 we have to react to the intent of our call and our base rules faster than we did."
The Buffs did have some moments when everything on the line clicked. CU's second possession of the night was a six-play, 94-yard march that culminated with a 45-yard Phillip Lindsay touchdown run. They then added an eight-play, 45-yard drive that produced a field goal on their next possession, and finished their scoring with a five-play, 55-yard drive that culminated with Montez's throw to Fields.
But after that, the Buffs came up empty. Of their remaining seven possessions, only three lasted at least seven plays. Maybe most telling was that Colorado penetrated the Rams' red zone only once all night, and that didn't come until the fourth quarter.
"Lack of composure, jumping offsides, not getting off all at the same time," Adams said. "That's our fault, my fault, their fault. We've got to do a better job of being five people with one brain. We weren't doing that in the second half."
This week, Adams said, the Buffs will concentrate on those "little things" that stopped too many of CU's possessions.
"There were flashes of really good things," he said. "But those are things that happen in a scrimmage, where there's flashes. In a game it's got to be all the time and it wasn't. It's going to have to be or we're going to change some things."
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
