Good second half effort proves not enough
The CU football team evened out their record to 4-4 Saturday with a 14-19 loss to the No. 13 Kansas Jayhawks.
The Jayhawks’ victory was their first win in Boulder since 1995.
In the first half, the two teams were held to a combined 288 net offensive yards, with only 13 first downs. It was a defensive first half, as KU led 3-0 going into the second half.
KU quarterback Todd Reesing led the team into a 13-7 third quarter lead coming out of the half.
“He’s a great quarterback,” said senior linebacker Jordon Dizon. “The last two years he picked us apart as an offense.”
By the end of the game, Reesing led his team in rushing with 84 yards on seven carries. He went 20-29 passing for 153 yards and no interceptions.
While CU quarterback Cody Hawkins was 27-44 for 287 yards, he had two interceptions. Hawkins has 14 interceptions on the season, two short of the school record for a season.
Hawkins opened up scoring in the third quarter with a 27-yard pass to senior tight end Tyson DeVree for a touchdown, giving the Buffs the lead. Kansas responded in under two minutes with a touchdown of its own and took back the lead 10-7.
After another two minutes, KU scored again with a field goal.
Dizon said the team did not come out in the second half as well as they had in the first.
“The first half, we were there, we did okay, you know, we held them out of the end zone a little bit,” Dizon said. “The second half we came out dead.”
Coach Dan Hawkins said Kansas adjusted its play from the first half to give the team the upper hand in the game.
“I thought they were just more patient, you know, running the football,” Hawkins said. “That was kind of the key for them in the second half.”
Devree said another obstacle for the Buffs was momentum. First downs were too often followed by an incomplete pass or lost yards, he said.
“We’d make a big play and then we’d get a 10-yard loss,” DeVree said. “That’s where toughness has to come into play and we have got to fight back from that for sure.”
Even though DeVree said the team did a good job fighting back, the Buffs failed to convert a number of scoring opportunities. Coach Hawkins said these missed plays took a hit at momentum as well.
“This is such an emotional game and a momentum game, and when you have opportunities and you don’t seize them, they tend to hammer away at you,” Hawkins said.
The Buffs are now 4-4, 2-2 in the Big 12. Playing in the talented Big 12 with a tough non-conference schedule, the Buffs cannot continue to make mistakes on or fail to convert crucial plays, said coach Hawkins.
“It’s not a question of heart by any means, but that’s the nature of the schedule, you know, and it’s going to continue to be that way,” said coach Hawkins. “So we all just have to continue to push, call ourselves to just a higher level of efficiency.”
The Buffs have four games left in their schedule, including two against opponents currently ranked or have been ranked this season. Cody Hawkins said the young team still has a lot to piece together before they can play at that higher level of efficiency.
“We are just trying to find the perfect game,” Cody Hawkins said. “Trying to find exactly what this team is, trying to find out how we are going to finish and find out who is going to start stepping up and making plays when we need to.”
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Margot Schneider at margot.schneider@thecampuspress.com
