Game ends 34-31 in triple overtime
The old students who came back to the University of Colorado for the school’s homecoming game on Saturday could not help shake what has now become the same old story for the Buffaloes football team.
The Buffs lost again, this time in triple overtime to the visiting Baylor Bears, 34-31 before 47,065 current and former students at Folsom Field. The loss drops the Buffs to 0-6 on the season with a winnable game hard to find on the remainder of their schedule.
“We don’t know why sometimes in life, whether it is illness or loss of job or death or divorce, sometimes life keeps serving it up,” Head Coach Dan Hawkins said after the deflating loss. “Sometimes life doesn’t serve it up the way we want it to.”
Junior quarterback Bernard Jackson, just like the team, has continued to make strides forward in his play, but against the Bears, he threw three interceptions, the last of which came on the last play of the third overtime to seal the game for the Bears.
Junior tight end Tyson DeVree “was open, I just threw a bad ball,” Jackson said referring to the game clinching interception. “I didn’t think (the linebacker) would jump that high. It was so close.”
The defense was surprisingly weak against the run, an area where they have been good all season. Baylor gained 136 yards on the ground, their first 100 yard rushing game of the season, and it was only the second time all season the Buffs allowed a 100 yard rushing day to an opponent.
“We have to make sure we are there to make plays,” senior linebacker Thaddaeus Washington said of the defense’s inability to stop the Baylor running attack. “We are there, but we are not making plays.”
The Buffs offense was sporadic throughout the game, having a big drive on their opening series of the game that led to a touchdown, but the Jackson interceptions and their inconsistency until they needed to tie the game in the fourth quarter to send the game to overtime ultimately did the Buffs in.
That important final offensive drive was a 12 play, 80 yard effort that included Jackson running for 19 yards on fourth down and two. In the end, however, the Buffs offense could not do enough to finish the game.
“For the first time, we sort of had the defense was not answering the call in the overtimes but the offense made some plays,” Hawkins said. “You want to win it as a team, we just didn’t finish.”
Junior running back Hugh Charles, who had the Buffs touchdown in the second overtime on the first play from scrimmage with a 25 yard scamper to the end zone, said it gets tougher and tougher to stay positive after losing week to week.
“There is a sick feeling in everybody’s stomach right now,” Charles said. “It is tough, but Coach Hawkins is really good at picking us up and keeping this team together.”
After Charles’ run put the Buffs up 31-24, all the defense needed to do was stop the Bears from scoring, and they nearly did, whittling Baylor into a fourth down situation. However, Baylor quarterback Shawn Bell completed a 10 yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Trent Shelton on the fourth down play.
“We had them where we wanted them all day, especially in the second overtime, we just couldn’t finish them” Jackson said. “It hurts losing the way we did. I felt we could have come away victorious.”
In spite of being in the midst of only the second 10 game losing streak in school history, Hawkins remained his optimistic self.
“You can determine your response to these things,” Hawkins said. “You just have to say ‘Hey, you’re never going to knock me out.'”
Washington echoed Hawkins sentiments.
“You can’t get down on you’re teammates and you can’t get down on yourself,” Washington said. “You have to keep going, it’s just like life. Some things come up that are unexpected but you have to keep moving on.”
