Denver, CO
Keeler: Do you believe? North Dakota State sure does. Here’s how Deion Sanders, CU Buffs can avoid shocking upset in Boulder
BOULDER — Football questions only today, kids. Since Deion Sanders doesn’t want mine, I chucked one at Dave Baldwin instead.
“I don’t think they’ll feel it’s their Super Bowl,” Baldwin, the former San Jose State coach, CSU and UNC offensive coordinator, said of North Dakota State, which visits CU on Thursday night to kick off the 2024 slate at Folsom Field.
“I really believe, in their hearts and minds, they feel they belong there and they can beat them.”
Lovely. Any advice for Coach Prime when it comes to rustling a herd of upset-minded Bison on the Front Range?
“It’s not going to be, ‘Oh, it’s a lifetime dream’ for them,” the Colorado native continued. “They believe they can win there. That’s the attitude they brought into our place.”
Ah, yes. Their place. Baldwin was calling plays at old Hughes Stadium for Jim McElwain and the Rams in September 2012.
Now this was a Rams roster, mind you, with at least six future NFL players, including Broncos fan fave and Super Bowl 50 champ Shaq Barrett; wideout Crockett Gillmore; and quarterback Garrett Grayson. As our best pal Steve Addazio used to say, the Rammies had some dudes.
Naturally, CSU scored on the third play of the game, a 69-yard touchdown toss from Grayson to Gillmore. Ex-Rams wideout Joe Hansley told me he remembered, after the celebration, thinking this was going to be easy. Almost too easy.
“Gillmore scored,” the Highlands Ranch product recalled, “and we sat down on the bench looking at each other and said, ‘We’re going to kick the (expletive) out of this team.’”
Yeah, turns out, not so much. The Bison scored 22 straight after that, shutting out CSU the rest of the way to steal a 15-point win.
“They started calling our (offensive) plays on the field,” Hansley said with a laugh. “(We) were more or less just embarrassed.”
Baldwin even remembered some “film exchange” shenanigans between McElwain and then-Bison coach Craig Bohl, who continued to torment the Rams with Wyoming until his retirement this past December.
“The Bison are not going to finesse you,” Baldwin said. “They’re going to smack you in the face and they’re going to hit you on defense … they’re going to play their style of defense, which was Tampa-2 at the time.
“And they’re going to play it over and over and over and play to every formation they can. And they’re going to be as physical for a small school as you’ve ever seen. They won’t back down with their physicality.”
Nothing travels like defense and the run game, and since 2010, NDSU is 6-1 against Power 4 teams, all on the road. The Bison led 28-24 two Septembers ago against Arizona in Tucson until Wildcats QB Jayden de Laura found Jacob Cowing with a 22-yard touchdown pass to escape with a 31-28 victory.
The Bison have a new coach in Tim Polasek, but the same shock-the-world mojo. NDSU doesn’t want you to see the herd coming until you’re between the hashmarks.
“They play that old-school brand of football, that they’re going to take it to the end (of the game),” Baldwin stressed. “They’re going to tackle well. They’re going to block really well. They’re not big-time talkers. They come to play football.
“They’re going to pound and hit you and play with such physicality. They feel they can slow down the tempo. And their thing is, they love getting into the fourth quarter with a chance.”
Meanwhile, of the 14 questions posed to Sanders at the Champions Center on Saturday, only four pertained to the Bison. And Coach Prime dismissed the idea of Week 1 being a “trap” game.
“I think who we are encourages (NDSU),” Sanders said of the Bison. “Everybody wants to beat us, and we want to beat everybody. So that encourages them tremendously. They know they’re on national television. They know the world is watching. I think we had four, five — maybe five scouts out there today, scouts out there every day watching practices. They see that kind of stuff. So regardless of who you place on the schedule. These guys want it.”
On this, Baldwin and Hansley agreed — they’re not sure if these Bison can run with the Buffs in Ralphie’s backyard. Even if two-way star Travis Hunter isn’t 100%, the future NFL draft pick is still 30-40% better than anybody in green and gold. Vandy transfer Will Sheppard is 6-foot-3 with high 4.4-ish wheels and the catch radius of a glider. LaJohntay Wester, formerly of FAU, is a Jimmy Horn Jr. clone.
“I know who they are,” Baldwin, who retired from coaching a few years ago, said of NDSU. “I don’t know who the heck CU is with all the changes they’ve made.
“Last year, talk was cheap and the actions on the field (meant more). (The Buffs) weren’t a very physical football team. Everybody says (CU is) much better on the offensive line. If that’s the case, with that quarterback (Shedeur Sanders) and those wide receivers, it could be very dynamic for them.”
Assuming he’s got time, mind you. As Baldwin and Hansley learned the hard way, when it comes to the Bison and big stages, assume at your peril.
Originally Published:
The final round of the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club is gearing up to be a classic.
Keegan Bradley will enter Sunday’s final 18 holes with a one-shot lead over Australian Adam Scott, with Ludvig Åberg and Alex Noren just two shots behind Bradley and local fan favorite Wyndham Clark lurking five shots behind.
Clark will be paired with two-time major champion Xander Schauffele in the third-to-last group of the FedExCup Playoffs event. Bradley and Scott are scheduled to tee off last at 11:30 a.m. Here’s the full list of tee times:
Tee times
7:25 a.m.: Eric Cole and Sahith Theegala
7:35 a.m.: Max Homa and Justin Thomas
7:45 a.m.: Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Matthieu Pavon
7:55 a.m.: Davis Thompson and Adam Hadwin
8:05 a.m.: Austin Eckroat and Aaron Rai
8:15 a.m.: Jason Day and Stephan Jaeger
8:25 a.m.: Matt Fitzpatrick and Scottie Scheffler
8:40 a.m.: Max Greyserman and Akshay Bhatia
8:50 a.m.: Cameron Young and Tony Finau
9 a.m.: Cam Davis and Thomas Detry
9:10 a.m.: Denny McCarthy and J.T. Poston
9:20 a.m.: Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa
9:30 a.m.: Will Zalatoris and Billy Horschel
9:45 a.m.: Sam Burns and Brian Harman
9:55 a.m.: Chris Kirk and Byeong Hun An
10:05 a.m.: Corey Conners and Shane Lowry
10:15 a.m.: Patrick Cantlay and Sungjae Im
10:25 a.m.: Russell Henley and Tom Hoge
10:35 a.m.: Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy
10:50 a.m.: Sepp Straka and Nick Dunlap
11 a.m.: Si Woo Kim and Taylor Pendrith
11:10 a.m.: Xander Schauffele and Wyndham Clark
11:20 a.m.: Ludvig Åberg and Alex Noren
11:30 a.m.: Keegan Bradley and Adam Scott
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Originally Published:
Southbound Interstate 25 is closed in Denver after an early morning crash left one person dead on Saturday, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.
Officers are investigating a fatal crash involving two motorists on southbound I-25 near 20th Street, the Denver Police Department said in a statement on social media. One motorist died at the scene of the crash, and paramedics took the other to the hospital with unknown injuries.
I-25 shut down between Interstate 70 and Exit 213 for Park Avenue around 4 a.m. Saturday, CDOT officials said.
A detour is in place, directing drivers from westbound I-70 to U.S. 287/Federal Boulevard and back onto southbound I-25 from Colfax, according to CDOT officials.
This is a developing story.
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The Denver Broncos will sit rookie starting quarterback Bo Nix in the preseason finale vs. the Arizona Cardinals. Jarrett Stidham will start the game, taking eight to 12 snaps, before giving way to Zach Wilson, who’ll play the rest of the game.
We’ll see if that’s how it plays out for Stidham, or if he ends up seeing more playing time. But it would seem that the Broncos are leaning heavily toward him being Nix’s primary backup.
Where does that leave Wilson? Broncos head coach Sean Payton revealed his expectations for the newcomer quarterback entering what could be his last appearance in the Orange and Blue.
“The first thing is, I’ll give him an opportunity maybe—I know it will, with the second group,” Payton said of Wilson. “So often it’s hard to evaluate that position if the other elements aren’t working. So just watching him really follow up the week he’s had in practice and take it to the game, run the huddle and just seeing him play.”
When he took to the podium on Wednesday to announce Nix as the starter, Payton described Wilson’s momentum in practice as being on a “heater,” a baseball term meant to describe pitchers in the zone. Payton wants to see it translate to the live-bullet grid-iron.
Now Broncos Country sees why Stidham is only getting a handful of snaps. If it plays out the way Payton hopes, Stidham will only get two, maybe three drives.
Payton wants to quickly turn the page to Wilson to give him the opportunity to ply his wares with the second-team offense. In Game 1, Wilson played surprisingly well as the No. 3 quarterback, with mostly the third-stringers, but with that same unit, he struggled in Game 2, facing relentless pressure.
Never say never because it’s the NFL and anything can happen, but Payton doesn’t sound like he’s necessarily expecting Wilson to go out and seize the Broncos’ QB2 job from Stidham. Rather, the Broncos head coach wants to make sure Wilson is given a solid opportunity to punctuate his summer under Payton’s tutelage with a showing that could see him catch on elsewhere.
“No, we’ve got a pretty good idea [of] the direction we’re going,” Payton said of the competition for backup quarterback. “We’re going to meet here in about five minutes. [GM] George [Paton], myself, a few others and kind of go through the depth chart as we see it and the discussion players. I think we’ve got a real good handle on that room specifically. We’re not announcing anything, but I like—I’ve said this, I’ll say it again, I like the room. I feel like we’ve gotten better and this will be a good test, [a] good opportunity for Zach getting work with the second wave. He’ll get a lot of snaps.”
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If Payton likes the room that much, perhaps the Broncos will end up keeping Wilson and carrying three quarterbacks on the 53-man roster. With a young, healthy first-round quarterback taking the starter’s snaps, I doubt Payton will ultimately want to ‘waste,’ so to speak, a roster spot on a signal-caller who’ll do nothing but hold a clipboard.
“Certainly, good question,” Payton said about carrying three quarterbacks. “I think we’ve studied 14—last year of the 32 teams, just under half the league—I know the rule recently changed. If, in fact, you do—this came after the 49ers-Eagles game, the third comes up [from the practice squad] without any count. Ultimately, I think most importantly, you’re really looking at your assets when we make that decision.”
Payton is speaking to the new NFL rule that allows teams to elevate and dress a practice squad quarterback to make him available as the “emergency QB” without him counting against the gameday roster or 53-man roster. But Wilson’s not going to make it through waivers.
In a perfect world, Payton would hope that he could waive Wilson, and re-sign him to the Broncos’ practice squad. But as the former No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 draft, if the Broncos waive Wilson, there will be some team(s) out there that’ll claim him, with a coach who loved him as a prospect coming out of BYU, intrigued by what the still-young quarterback looks like in his system after a half-year under Payton’s wing.
Even if Wilson goes out on Sunday and turns in another relatively unimpressive performance, if the Broncos waive him, it’s a virtual guarantee he’ll get claimed off waivers because of his draft pedigree and the Payton QB shine. However, there’s one last play for Payton within the realm of possibility: a trade.
Payton is going with Stidham as his QB2. But if Wilson can impress vs. the Cardinals, perhaps the Broncos could trade him to a team that doesn’t want to leave its backup quarterback fate up to chance on the NFL waiver wire. I have my doubts about that possibility.
But, again, it’s the NFL. We have to remain open to everything, even the slim chances.
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