Ini­tial obser­va­tions from Colorado’s 31–28 loss to the Kansas State Wild­cats in a Big 12 show­down in Boulder.

Wild­cats gash­ing: Kansas State’s pri­ma­ry key to vic­to­ry was run­ning the rock. In the first half alone, junior DJ Gid­dens tram­pled the Buffs for 127 yards on 12 car­ries, good for 10.6 yards a pop. Ex-Buff Dylan Edwards added 17 yards and a TD. Gid­dens was untack­lable at times, and the CU line­back­ers and sec­ondary had an espe­cial­ly hard time wrap­ping up in the sec­ond and third lev­els. KSU con­tin­ued to pound the foot­ball and bleed the clock in the sec­ond half, start­ing with near­ly an eight-minute TD dri­ve in the third. A Col­orado local, Duran­go grad­u­ate and start­ing right tack­le Carv­er Willis, helped pave the way for an 182-yard rush­ing night for Giddens.

Hunter, Horn hurt: CU star wideout/cornerback and Heis­man Tro­phy can­di­date Travis Hunter, who has been cen­tral in the Buffs’ 4–1 start com­ing into Sat­ur­day, left the game mid­way through the sec­ond quar­ter with what ESPN report­ed as a shoul­der injury. Hunter caught a 14-yard pass, but was crunched by KSU safe­ty Daniel Cobbs, and imme­di­ate­ly left the game. He didn’t return, and sopho­more Colton Hood came on in Hunter’s place on defense (and lat­er picked off K‑State). On offense, CU also lost wide­out Jim­my Horn Jr. to injury in the first half and Horn didn’t return, either. The absence of those two play­mak­ers, espe­cial­ly Hunter, took some explo­sive­ness out of CU’s offense, even if the Buffs man­aged to put 28 on the board.

Hood in clutch: No Hunter to play lock-down cor­ner in crunch time? No prob­lem, at least for a moment. Hood came up clutch late in the fourth quar­ter with an inter­cep­tion and run­back that set up CU’s go-ahead touch­down with 3:20 left. On fourth-and‑6 at the CU 31-yard line, Avery Johnson’s pass was tipped by Pre­ston Hodge and then cor­ralled by Hood. He ran it back to the KSU 17-yard line, trip­ping him­self up on the grass to come up just short of the pick-six. How­ev­er, the next dri­ve, Jayce Brown burned Hodge for a 50-yard TD catch.

Shedeur shines: Once again, the CU QB looked like a top draft pick, despite play­ing with­out his two top tar­gets in Hunter and Horn. No. 2 com­plet­ed 16 straight pass­es across the sec­ond and third quar­ters — a CU record streak — and willed the Buffs back in the game with his arm despite tak­ing some big hits. His lone blem­ish was an inter­cep­tion on an over­throw, and his final stat line was videogame-esque: 34 of 40 for 338 yards, three touch­downs and a 186.2 rating.

Big sacks: Both team’s defen­sive lines made noise in the first half, as the Wild­cats tal­lied four sacks for minus-49 yards, while CU’s defense had three sacks for minus-29 yards. Kansas State’s pres­sure also forced an inten­tion­al ground­ing on CU’s last pos­ses­sion of the half that effec­tive­ly killed the dri­ve. In the sec­ond half, the Wild­cats con­tin­ued to bring the heat, espe­cial­ly as the Buffs all but aban­doned the run. KSU had two sacks for minus-25 yards over the final two quar­ters, fin­ish­ing with six sacks over­all. On a third-quar­ter sack, KSU defen­sive end Ryan Davis cel­e­brat­ed with Shedeur Sanders’ sig­na­ture wrist­watch move, hold­ing the pose for a few sec­onds toward the CU crowd.

KSU QB hurt, returns: The Wild­cats also had an injury of their own to dual-threat quar­ter­back, but Johnson’s absence was brief. The sopho­more suf­fered what looked like a side injury on KSU’s open­ing pos­ses­sion of the sec­ond half, fol­low­ing an impres­sive thread­ed pass that went for 33 yards to Brown. Senior Ta’Quan Rober­son spelled John­son, who returned to the field lat­er in the dri­ve to throw a one-yard TD pass to Brown that made it a two-score lead. That 16-play, 81-yard dri­ve chewed up more than half the third quarter.

Who’s who: As has become the norm with Buffs games under Coach Prime, an array of stars were on the CU side­lines on Sat­ur­day night at Fol­som Field. That list includ­ed cur­rent Nugget Rus­sell West­brook, retired for­mer Nugget Carme­lo Antho­ny (who rocked a Peter Fors­berg Avs jer­sey), for­mer Wiz­ards star John Wall, cur­rent NBA stars Kevin Durant and John Wall, and rap­per Cam’ron. Plus, for­mer CU foot­ball stars and cur­rent NFL receivers Laviska Shenault and Juwann Win­free were also on hand.