If you’re going to Faulk the Faulk, why not walk the walk? CU went 4-0 in 2024 when Isaiah Augustave touched the ball at least 10 times. The Buffs were 3-0 last fall when Micah Welch racked up at least 10 touches.
Run, Ralphie! No, seriously. Run.
Georgia Tech’s breaking in a new defensive coordinator. Delaware’s breaking in a new subdivision. Houston’s breaking in at least three new safeties. Wyoming looked positively broken last fall.
Did you see that fight card? If Deion Sanders’ Buffs can get their ducks in a row, there’s a great shot at opening the campaign 4-0 a month into the 2025 slate. Or 3-1, at the worst.
BYU still feels like a matchup problem on Sept. 27, but it’s at home, at least, with bruises from that drubbing in the ’24 Alamo Bowl still fresh to the flesh.
CU already knows how to win in Fort Worth and hung with Utah in Salt Lake two years ago with Ryan Staub at the controls. The Buffs could be 6-2 at the end of October, and then everything’s back on the table.
Although such caviar dreams feel fishy if new Buffs quarterbacks Julian Lewis and Kaidon Salter get stuck carrying as much water up the Flatirons as Shedeur Sanders had to.
For two years, Shedeur made down and distance irrelevant and third-and-forever look routine. Travis Hunter was CU’s Ja’Marr Chase, uncoverable with one defender, acrobatic enough to leap over two.
In PlayStation parlance, the Buffs were a beautiful, maddening glitch, the kind of CPU offense that could have you chucking a controller — or six — against the nearest wall out of sheer frustration.
That’s hard to sustain, much less duplicate. Until a new safety-blanket combo emerges, the Buffs need to suss out how to pound the rock with more conviction.
To that end, Sanders is handing part of the run game off to Marshall Faulk, two of the surest mitts in NFL history. CU made Faulk’s hiring official on Thursday night, with the Buffs’ new running backs coach bringing another slice of Canton to the Champions Center.
As a mentor and sounding board, Faulk could be a coup for CU’s tailbacks. Especially Augustave and Welch, the young duo who gave the Buffs a physical jab-jab-jabbing option last autumn as a compliment for Shedeur Sanders’ haymakers over the top.
If the last seven months taught us anything about this iteration of the Big 12, where the presumed last (Arizona State) shall be first and the presumed first (Utah) shall be 5-7, it’s to a.) expect the unexpected; and b.) be ready to pivot in case Plan A at QB1 gets kiboshed by hazard or happenstance.
Lewis is accurate, adroit and athletic, but also smaller than his predecessor and only a few months removed from the high-school game.
At Liberty, Salter was more of a threat to take off than Sanders ever was at CU. How will that mesh with offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur, a pro-style, pocket-passing proponent? Over Salter’s 33 collegiate appearances with the Flames, Liberty’s offense amassed 150 rushing yards or more 30 times. The three times they didn’t get there, the Flames went 0-3.
Fortunately, early November offers up a couple of potential softies. Arizona gave up 140 rush yards or more eight times last fall — CU rambled for 148 in Tucson — and went 1-7 in those tilts. West Virginia allowed foes to run for 140 or more seven times in 2024 and went 3-4 in those games.
In other words, there are yards to be had. And the Marshall Plan, on paper, sounds like as good a path as any to get a new era off on the right foot.