BOULDER — CU quar­ter­back Sam Noy­er watched UCLA cut a four-touch­down deficit to just 7 points on Sat­ur­day night. The Buffs need­ed to push back.

Noy­er low­ered his shoulder.

Inch­es from the end zone, on the 10th play of the dri­ve, Noy­er played the role of 6‑foot‑4 bat­ter­ing ram at Fol­som Field. Touch­down. His rum­ble across the goal line and CU’s even­tu­al 48–42 vic­to­ry unveiled two truths: 1. The Buffs found their quar­ter­back. 2. He wants to run you over.

“I played safe­ty last year,” Noy­er said, “so I’m kind of used to the hit­ting at this point.”

A glance at the stat sheet from his quar­ter­back debut — 20-of-31 pass­ing for 257 yards and a 12-yard touch­down pass to tight end Brady Rus­sell on a per­fect­ly exe­cut­ed play-action set — shows Noy­er isn’t just a brute. He also rushed for 64 yards. He looked pol­ished and con­fi­dent. He didn’t throw a pick.

The per­for­mance caused CU coach Karl Dor­rell to make a full stop in his postgame news con­fer­ence. Did Noy­er real­ly just do that?

“He was a safe­ty a year ago,” Dor­rell said. “Can you believe that?”

Go ahead and blame Mel Tuck­er for the lapse of posi­tion­al judg­ment. Noy­er played in four games at safe­ty in 2019. The grad­u­a­tion of quar­ter­back Steven Mon­tez opened the door for Noy­er, a red­shirt senior, to take the reins at quar­ter­back in 2020. The sam­ple size is small, but ear­ly returns sug­gest CU is val­i­dat­ed in its deci­sion to roll with Noy­er over junior Tyler Lytle.

“I just want­ed this oppor­tu­ni­ty from the start and I final­ly got it,” Noy­er said. “That’s all I could ask for. I’ve got to con­tin­ue to get better.”

Added Dor­rell: “With Sam, this is def­i­nite­ly a vin­di­ca­tion for him. He believed he was a quar­ter­back but did a team, unselfish thing a year ago when he moved to safe­ty. Final­ly, he is back play­ing a posi­tion he has want­ed to play from the very begin­ning. For him to play the type of game he played today in his first start, I am very proud of him.”

Only 554 fans were in atten­dance on Sat­ur­day at Fol­som Field with coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic restric­tions in Boul­der Coun­ty. But more eyes across col­lege foot­ball will cer­tain­ly be focused on Noy­er after his stel­lar debut. The Buffs are 1–0 to start the year.

“Guys are just excit­ed to be back out there play­ing ball,” Noy­er said. “A cou­ple of months ago, we didn’t know if we would get this opportunity.”