Undefeated UCLA Football to Take on Winless Colorado in Boulder
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The last few times the Bruins have visited the Buffaloes, they returned to Westwood with a loss.
Luckily for the blue and gold, these are not those same Buffaloes.
UCLA football (3-0) will open Pac-12 play against Colorado (0-3) in Boulder on Saturday, giving them a chance to extend their overall winning streak to seven games against one of the lowest-rated teams in the nation. It's been a long time since the Buffaloes were a powerhouse, but this is a new low, even for the middling modern era of their program.
Blowout losses to TCU, Air Force and Minnesota have put former UCLA coach Karl Dorrell on the hot seat right off the bat, bringing his record to 3-13 against his last 16 FBS opponents. Colorado is ranked No. 116 in ESPN's Football Power Index, lower than any other Power Five team by a wide margin.
With all that's gone wrong for the Buffaloes so far this month, coach Chip Kelly still tried his best to dig up a compliment for them when asked what they did best on Wednesday.
"They’ve got a good defensive front, a lot of veteran experience there," Kelly said.
The statistics would beg to differ, though, considering Colorado is allowing 348 rushing yards per game on 6.9 yards per carry. The defense as a whole is allowing 42.7 points per game, which is bottom-five in the country.
The raw passing numbers look a little nicer for the Buffaloes, but they are skewed by the fact that Air Force only attempted five passes against them back in Week 2 – in addition to teams' eagerness to stick to a ground attack against a porous front seven.
Quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson carved up Colorado's defense in the latter half of the 2021 season, and he even put up big numbers in a season-opening loss in 2020. Across his last three games versus the Buffaloes, Thompson-Robinson has thrown for 786 yards and six touchdowns while completing 62.8% of his passes for a passer rating of 147.7. The dual-threat veteran has also added 245 yards and two touchdowns on the ground in that span.
Saturday's game will mark the fifth time since 2000 that a 3-0 Pac-12 team is facing off against an 0-3 Pac-12 team. The undefeated teams are 3-1 in such contests, with the 2019 Bruins becoming the only ones to pull off an upset when they came back from down 32 points to beat Washington State in Pullman 67-63.
Colorado has only scored 30 points all season, so even if they were to become the second to achieve that unexpected feat, it surely wouldn't come in the same fashion.
Despite everything seeming to work in their favor, Thompson-Robinson – who was the quarterback for that 2019 UCLA team – said he knows what it's like to enter a game in the position Colorado is currently in.
"Shoot, we’ve been there before," Thompson-Robinson said. "We know the type of feeling that they have in their locker room right now. They’re going to be a real hungry team."
Colorado does not appear have their own version of Thompson-Robinson to lead a miracle comeback upset, nor do they seem to even have a single counterpart to the Bruins' fifth-year starter. Dorrell has been rolling with three quarterbacks this season – JT Shrout, Brendan Lewis and Owen McCown – and they are combining for 125.3 yards per game on 47.7% passing with an 89.7 passer rating.
This will, however, be the Bruins' first road contest, and first matchup against a Power Five team, in 2022. UCLA has lost its last three road games against Colorado, even if they were 4-1 there prior to 2016.
The Bruins will have a chance to break that streak Saturday afternoon, with kickoff set for 11 a.m. PT.
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