Senior wide receiver LaJohntay Wester makes a touchdown during the Rocky Mountain Showdown at Canvas Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (Clementine Miller/CU Independent)
In the 93rd installment of the great Rocky Mountain Showdown, the University of Colorado Boulder football team marched into Canvas Stadium on Saturday night to defeat their in-state rivals, the Colorado State Rams, 28-9.
The Buffaloes had a lot of aspects of their game to clean up heading into the meeting, and they executed exceptionally, walking away with a 19-point win.
Quarterback Shedeur Sanders had another NFL-caliber performance, throwing for 310 yards and 4 touchdowns. Sanders completed 36 passes at a 73% completion rate, constantly finding open receivers in the backfield.
Travis Hunter and LaJohntay Wester split the four touchdowns, with Hunter having another monster game, collecting 13 catches and 100 receiving yards. Wester finished with 5 catches and 80 yards, with two of his five receptions resulting in the endzone.
Shedeur Sanders split his 310 yards surprisingly even, as Jimmy Horn Jr. and Will Sheppard both got in on the action with a combined 83 yards and 11 catches.
In the first two games of the season, Colorado’s rushing game has been harrowing, but Saturday night they seemed to have figured out a better system. The Buffs picked up an average of 5.7 yards per rush, almost triple as much as when they played North Dakota State and Nebraska. Micah Welch led the rushing attack with 65 yards off 9 touches.
Saturday’s win was a very promising show from the defense, in the last six quarters overall, the Buffaloes defense has allowed just 9 points.
Colorado forced four turnovers against the Rams, with interceptions courtesy of Preston Hodge and Travis Hunter. Two more fumbles from the Rams resulted in 14 points off the four miscues.
Saturday night was the largest crowd that Colorado State’s Canvas Stadium has ever seen and when Coach Deion Sanders was asked about it after the game he confidently responded.
“Why is that? You know darn well,” Sanders said.
The historic rivalry had brief moments of altercation throughout the evening, but nothing got too extreme. Colorado State sophomore quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi had words about the Buffaloes earlier that week, going on the record for saying “Well see how far Instagram followers get them.”
During the pregame warmups, an incident happened where a CSU player bumped into Colorado wide receiver coach Jason Phillips. Phillips later went up to CSU head coach Jay Norvell to confront him, nothing physical took place but an elevated conversation about the topic.
Once the game concluded and both teams met in the middle to shake hands, CSU quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi approached Shedeur Sanders, but instead of shaking his hand, Shedeur raised his finger and confronted Fowler-Nicolosi about his comments earlier in the week.
“You’re typing on Instagram, I’ve been on that business, you can’t f*** with me,” Sanders said.
Overall, this was a relieving, morale-boosting win for the Buffaloes. Shedeur Sanders had a great bounce-back performance, the defense got imposing stops, and the run game finally woke up: a successful night for Colorado.
The Buffaloes prepare for their first Big-12 contest of the season next Saturday against the Baylor Bears. Baylor just ran through Air Force 31-3, improving it’s record to 2-1 for the year.
The Bears have a strong rush game in sophomore running back Dawson Pendergrass, but ESPN gives the Buffaloes a 55.8% chance to win their second consecutive game.
Contact CU Independent guest writer Baylan Wysuph at baylan.wysuph@colorado.edu.
