Colorado defeats NDSU: Does this affect team's outlook this season? | Joel Klatt Show

all right last one that I want to talk about is Colorado I save it for the last because I I thought about saving this for Wednesday and I just thought to myself you know what what I'm about to say is is is truthful and I just you've got to say it Colorado beat North Dakota State 3126 now in and of itself that's about what I thought was going to happen if you actually go back to last week's episode I said Colorado wins but does not cover that's exactly what happened in this game I knew it was going to be a tough game against North Dakota State because I really like North Dakota State's program you saw they were tough man you know like they're going to be right there uh for an FCS National Championship now you could say like okay well if that's what you expect it then you must be riding High because man that performance from shadur and Travis Hunter was incredible and yes that's true about the performance and no I'm not Riding High with Colorado I was convinced in this off season that we were going to see a Colorado team that that had gotten better a Colorado team that had gotten gotten better better at the line of scrimmage better on defense better in situations better in the game plan and what I watched last Thursday night was two Elite stars and really maybe more with a guy like Jimmy horn shador Sanders and Travis Hunter are elite players Jimmy horn is an elite wide receiver and everything else is really questionable for Colorado nothing got better from last year so they have these elite players that carried them over North Dakota State carried them and yet all the same stuff that happened last year happened again they didn't get better now to be fair it's the first game they had another huge roster turnover and maybe they're going to continue to get better and get better from week one to week two which is the the week in which you you generally see the most amount of growth because you can actually go back from a game against an opponent and you can teach and you can put that on tape and you can put that on the practice field and try to fix some of those mistakes but here's the problem with that is that we saw the exact same things happen that happened last year and so to me that's alarming I've got alarm Bells going off right now for Colorado Elite Talent same problems here's some of the issues from last year they ran it for less than three yards per carry they had no creativity in the Run game they have got to that the game plan running the football has to get more creative because it's not about being dominant in the Run game it's not about establishing the Run game it's about creating easier opportuni for shador to throw the football that's what it's about it's about throwing the football when you want to not when you have to because if you continue to do what you did against North goota State guess what you did throw the ball because you have to which exposes shador Sanders that's unsustainable there's so many things that happen on Thursday night that are totally unsustainable for Colorado not running the football is one of those at some point those guys up front are going to have to take pride in the fact that listen you're either going to sit there and you're going to watch the Stars around you carry you to PO potentially be in games or you can actually be a teammate and you can actually contribute to what's going on because right now it's not happening they did not run the ball well enough shador was unbelievable Under Pressure seven of nine for 165 and a touchdown 18 yards per attempt and he was only sacked one time why cuz he was phenomenal the offensive line was not very good again and that's unsustainable the pressure rate was 30% of his dropbacks very similar to last year last year it was right up there around 35% 36 37% this was an FCS team and it was 30% that's an alarming statistic so the same things popping up again that has to get better at some point whether it's the game plan and the creativity of the Run game or whether it's the pride in those guys UPF front take that has to get better for Colorado to take the next step Travis Hunter playing both ways I know we all love to see it we love to see it and I'm not suggesting that they don't play him both ways but the plan for Travis Hunter has to change it has to change he played basically every snap on defense and missed only two snaps on offense so he played and he played seven on special teams so guess how many snaps he 136 136 and if he plays 136 out of 180 I'm like okay it's one it's 136 that's what it is but when it's 136 out of 140 that's too much because that suggests that he was wasting effort in because listen a game is kind of like a bell curve all right there there are snaps that that become meaningless and then there are the bulk of the Snaps are kind of like in the middle and then there's these snaps on the other side and there's just a few that mean everything and what you have to do is that you have to shove his snap total into the back half of the bell curve you've got to get him off the field for this 10 12% of the snaps that don't matter that has to be part of the game plan first downs base base defense on on you know your opponent's side of the territory you know all these different things that you can do by the way here's here's another little one build an offensive game plan so that he's always the wide receiver near nearest your bench build a defensive game plan that he's always the corner nearest your bench maybe not always but maybe there is a certain call or in certain parts of the field where you can put him there so that he can slide in and out and take five or six snaps off and it doesn't hurt you okay based on field position time of game game situation all these those these different things I make the contention that you need to take 10 to 15% of Travis Hunter snaps away from him and you can do that so that in those moments that you need him to be the elite player that he is he can play at his Peak potential cuz right now when you Redline like that the entire year it will break down and if he breaks down after what I saw on Thursday night they don't have anything else so it's incumbent on the coaching staff to build a game plan that allows him to be sustainable so again this this word of sustainable what happened Thursday night was not sustainable at all you can't expect shador and Travis to do that every single week and bail everybody else out the game plan has to be better from the coaching staff and the play from those teammates have got to get better we see this same undisciplined play from the same undisciplined players time and time again those penalties have to stop that's a that's a big one um and then the clock mismanagement the clock mismanagement at the end of the game was egregious now I do believe that that was shor's call at the end of the game I haven't talked to anybody within the organization or the program and I don't know this to be absolutely the fact but what happened at the end of the game with the clock management if you if you didn't see it with a minute 41 Colorado had the lead and they had first down all right not or excuse me North Dakota state had some timeouts and all you need to know is that if you just play it out correctly North Dakota state receives the ball at worst with about 5 seconds left or 4 seconds left in the game and yet what happened they threw the ball on first down with a minute 41 this cannot happen now if it was a check on the field by the quarterback then that's going to be evaluated by the next level that can't happen it cannot happen I don't care what the defense is it doesn't matter if they're if nobody's covering it has to be a run play there is no way that you as an offense can stop the clock for the defense in that moment they must burn their timeouts the sequence goes like this anybody knows this this was about this was almost a Mario crystal ball moment and it almost burned them because North Dakota State got the ball and drive back and they catch a Hail Mary we'll get to that in a moment first down 141 left what do you do run the ball I don't care if there's 11 guys stuffed in the Run box you run the ball whether you want to hand it off or run it with the quarterback you run the football takes about 5 seconds north go State what do they do they take a timeout and 5 Seconds is generous by the way some of them take six or seven seconds so this is just in in in a very conservative clock management style so now it's second down there's a minute 35 left what do you do run the ball you have to run the ball in that situation there is no other option I do not care what the defense does or what they're in you run the football the clock must run at that point it takes about 5 seconds and at third down you're snapping the ball with conservatively 50 seconds left what do you do at that point snap the ball again and you run the ball again and you punt the ball and North Dakota state gets the ball with about 5 seconds left conservatively at that point you might not even need to punt the ball you can you can snap it and run backwards and Bleed it and go down there's there there is a scenario where you never have to punt the fact that North Dakota State touched the football with a chance to win is an egregious mistake egregious mistake it's unsustainable to play this way if you're Colorado they have Elite Talent and you cannot waste it with these same mistakes that they continue to waste it with everything that I'm talking about is factual none of it is personal and if it continues they will lose a fair share amount of their games why do I know know that because in that conference they will play 8 to n one possession games from here on out they just played one against North goota State they're going to play eight or nine more in that League because everybody's bunched up everybody is good everybody is tough in that league so if you don't fix these things that were clear mistakes they will come back to haunt you it's the exact same type of mistakes that we saw last year bit them in the butt and that's why they only won four games and they didn't go to a bowl game I said they could win eight or nine games games not if they play like this not if they play like this so I've been very bullish on Colorado they wi at 3126 they played Nebraska this weekend and they've got to fix all these mistakes that I just laid out right there thank you for watching the Joel class Show YouTube channel and if you like this clip make sure to like it and subscribe to the channel and you can stay up to dat on all of my college football coverage