Sunglasses and Advil: Oregon 45, Colorado 3 Edition
Colorado quarterback Steven Montez laid the biggest egg of his career on Friday night against Oregon. He threw a career-high four interceptions and failed to lead CU to a touchdown drive for the first time since Washington State shut out the Buffaloes in 2017.
But Montez wasn't even the starter that day (Sam Noyer was), so formally we can count last night's debacle as the worst performance of Montez's career as a CU starter.
And he deserves all the usual amounts of blame for his performance.
But I can't be too hard on him. It's not just that Oregon has a really good defense this year, although it was painfully obvious that CU was not on the same level athletically. The reason I can't bang on Montez too much is that there's simply way too much pressure on him.
I'm not talking about "this is big game and I'm nervous" pressure. That might have had something to do with it, but I doubt it. I'm talking about the kind of pressure where Montez knows the defense is going to give up at least 30 points every time out. He knows the running game is only half-decent. And he knows if he doesn't put up a touchdown on every possession, odds are good that means CU is on its way to getting beat.
It's too much. You can hold it together for a little while that way, but eventually that pressure is going to crack something, and the thing it cracked Friday night was Steven Montez.
