Grades for the game last night, after reflecting and re-watching it this morning:
Offense: I'm going to give them a solid "B." Shedeur's slow start (agian!) is the biggest ding, but once the passing game got going, I was pleased with this unit. Our WR's are outstanding and it feels like there is always someone open. I like that we are keeping the same core guys on the field in this unit; It seemed like last year there was a different random receiver stepping up each game, which was exciting and cool in a way, but I feel like this years approach will build more chemistry. It was so nice to see some competent play running the football, yet I still want a little more there. Welch was pretty impressive, and we'd be talking about Augustave more if it weren't for the unfortunate fumble. The thing that annoyed me most about trying to score on our last drive was that it took away game reps from the running game. There wasn't a lot of clock left, but it would have been great to see us grind it out and get 40 or so yards on the ground to close it out. I am dying to see us break off a big TD run. We were simply better than CSU's defense in every way... it will be telling to see if we stick with running it when there is more adversity, but I will take this. Really do think we could have easily had another td if not for some really questionable penalties and no-calls, but it is what it is.
Defense: This is an "A-" for me. They were outstanding throughout nearly the entirety of meaningful play. It never felt like CSU threatened to do anything great on offense, and it was such a relief to see them shut down the crossing route again and again after we struggled with it last year. The four turnovers were great to see. CSU did, however, pick up a number of fourth downs, particularly on their one long second half drive, and it would have been great to see them shut at least another one of those down. If I'm going to credit the offense with an extra td they "should have had", I think you could say that CSU probably should have had another TD, too. But, we created turnovers and never allowed them to get into a rhythm, and BFN was never able to get comfortable. We forced him to throw up a ton of really stupid, junk passes, and he paid for it; he also never did anything meaningful with his running. There's some dings for the fourth down struggles, and also giving up key plays to the wildcat, but most of the bad stuff occurred when the game felt totally under control. This unit feels really well coached and improved from last year. Hopefully we continue to get better, and while I don't think this will be a dominating defense, I think they're absolutely good enough to give our offense the margin of error they need to win some shootouts. I love how responsive and adaptive they've been as a unit. Livingston has made a great first impression.
Special Teams: "C-" here, I think. It's easy to overlook special teams in a win like this, but I have zero confidence in Mata in anything beyond like, 30 yards, and even then it's iffy. I will be numb and ready for disappointment if we have a game that comes down to him making a field goal, though I suppose he handled that situation against ASU last year... Running off Cole Becker was a terrible choice. There were some mistakes on both sides of the punt game as well. Vasset shanked a couple punts and I think Wester has very poor ball tracking skills in the return game. Perhaps he is instructed to let the punt be as good as possible so Shedeur has more field in front of him to pad his stats with?? (lol). Overall they didn't do anything majorly bad to directly harm us, but they did put us at risk in ways that could have been deeply frustrating if we were playing a good team.