Prior to Saturday night’s game, the Colorado Buffaloes were off to their best start in 20 years but had a formidable foe looming, the USC Trojans.
The Buffs were 0-12 against the Trojans — make that 0-13 — as they fell 31-20 for their first loss of the season. Colorado is still on top of the Pac-12 South but made things a bit more difficult as they have Washington coming up and are getting deeper into conference play.
Red shirt freshman quarterback J.T. Daniels was 17-34 through the air for 272 yards and three touchdowns for the Trojans. Michael Pittman Jr. had five catches for 144 yards and two touchdowns and Tyler Vaughns had five catches for 86 yards and a TD.
Early in Saturday’s game, the Trojans rushing attack were non-existent, yet somehow USC led 21-7 going into the half.
Colorado had a stellar start to the game defensively as Daniels threw two interceptions in the first quarter before finally settling down and throwing for three first half touchdowns.
Daniels threw an interception on the first play of the game as Drew Lewis jumped the route and came up with the catch. He set the tone early for the defense as they then forced another pick, this time by Evan Worthington.
Both offenses started slowly as they were trying to find some traction in a huge game in the Pac-12 race before Laviska Shenault Jr. finally got the Buffs on the board to give Colorado a 7-0 lead. USC would soon respond.
Daniels responded with 10:11 remaining before the half as he hit Tyler Vaughns for a 27-yard TD to tie things up. He then hit Michael Pittman Jr. for two additional touchdowns, one went 65 yards and the other, nine yards.
The Buffs went into the half trailing 21-7 and for as dominant as the Trojans were through the air in the half, they didn’t seem to need to run the ball as they had zero total rushing yards.
The second half was all Trojans as it was led by defensive back Ajene Harris, who had an interception returned to the house for a 6-yard touchdown to push the score to 28-7.
Colorado did finally score on a 2-yard run by Kyle Evans and also a 19-yard TD run by Steven Montez late in the game to make it 31-20, but didn’t have enough to win the game.
The Buffs are on the road again this week to take on an angry Washington team that lost in overtime to Oregon on Saturday as well. Colorado needs every win from here on out. Both teams are looking to respond with a win and are looking to play in the Pac-12 championship.