Buffs' struggles trace to O-line
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BY CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star
Cody Hawkins gets it.
He’s the quarterback of a 5-6 Colorado football team that ranks last in the Big 12 Conference in total offense and scoring.
His dad’s also the head coach, so there can’t be anyone else who hears more about the Buffaloes’ struggles.
Heck, not too long ago, Hawkins even lost his job to freshman Tyler Hansen for a spell.
And then fans discovered what Dan Hawkins had warned about all along:
You can’t blame the quarterbacks for Colorado’s sputtering offense. Not even close.
Darrell Scott, a heralded freshman running back, has been dinged up much of the season. Freshman Rodney Stewart was lost for the season when he broke a leg in the ninth game. At the time, he was the Big 12’s fourth-leading rusher.
That pales in comparison to what’s gone on with the offensive line.
On the first day of fall camp, redshirt freshman Mike Iltus, in line for playing time at right guard, tore an ACL. A player he was competing against, senior Erick Faatogi, became an academic casualty, as did redshirt freshman Sione Tau, listed as the No. 2 right tackle entering fall.
Tight end Riar Geer also missed the first two games.
While preparing for a matchup against Florida State, starting right guard Max Tuioti-Mariner tore an ACL. That pushed Devon Head, who began the season on the left side, into Tuioti-Mariner’s spot.
And when Ryan Miller broke a leg against the Seminoles, redshirt freshman Matthew Bahr had to take on a much bigger role.
So much for senior center Daniel Sanders gutting it out to play every offensive snap this season, or Nate Solder handling most of the left tackle duties.
“That’s a rough question, man,” Dan Hawkins said when asked about how limited the Buffs have been this season. “I don’t want to think negatively.”
Fair enough.
CU does have a chance to become bowl-eligible by winning Friday’s regular-season finale at Nebraska. But it’s easy to think the Buffs would have already accomplished that if not for their offensive line issues.
Without those, they’d have been a lot more than the shell they are now.
“The one positive thing, if you can take a positive from it, is it all kind of happened early and it’s given the guys experience,” running game coordinator and offensive line coach Jeff Grimes said.
Grimes, in his 11th year as a full-time college assistant and second at Colorado, doesn’t dwell on the bad luck CU’s had with injuries. But he says it’s made his job tough.
“It has affected us and it has limited some of the things we can do,” Grimes said. “We’ve altered our schemes a little bit, but every season you alter. You find out what your strengths are.
“You wish you had something different, but that doesn’t do any good. You can sit around and be flustered by it, or step up and say, ‘All right, here we go.’”
The Buffs are averaging just 322.7 yards per game (310.8 in conference play) and 19.4 points (14.5 in the Big 12).
And they’re hoping Friday will bring about a dramatically different result.
“It’s a special challenge for our offensive line,” Grimes said. “Because I think the strength of their defense is their defensive line.”
Yeah, he knows how strange that sounds. It was just last year that CU beat Nebraska 65-51.
“They’re just playing with far more effort and toughness and aggression, and I think this goes for the defense as a whole,” Grimes said of the Huskers. “They’re getting after it. That’s the first thing I noticed when I turned on the film versus what we saw last year.”
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
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