While we got a four-game appetizer in Week 0 (including a stunning top-10 upset), the college football season began in full on Thursday night as Week 1 got underway with a few intriguing games, headlined by FCS powerhouse North Dakota State heading to Boulder to take on the much-hyped Colorado Buffaloes.
It figured to be a competitive game, but Colorado was expected to have an edge with their athleticism at the skill positions. Early on that played out, as the Buffs took a 14-10 lead on a pair of touchdown passes from Shedeur Sanders to Travis Hunter and Jimmy Horn Jr., who both ran away from the Bison defense on their way to the end zone. However, as the first half dragged on, the Colorado offense couldn’t continue creating explosive plays and the NDSU offense leaned on the Buffaloes defense, taking a 20-17 lead into halftime. That put some real pressure on the Buffaloes to figure some things out coming out of halftime and find pay dirt again.
The Buffaloes marched down the field early in the third quarter, but saw disaster strike on the goal line on a freak play when a Sanders pass hit a DB’s foot, popped up into the air, and got picked off by the Bison (watch the full video here). It’s a wildly unlucky play, but was also just generally not a very good pass from Sanders to end up hitting the defender’s foot (a rare misfire from him on the night). Sanders would bounce back quickly, though, as the Buffaloes were able to get a rare quick stop on defense and Shedeur was able to find Hunter for a go-ahead touchdown on the ensuing drive.