Colorado’s biggest weakness was the play calling in season-opening loss

The Colorado Buffaloes struggled all over the field in Friday night’s season-opening loss to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. The scoreboard at Folsom Field read 27-20 in favor of the road team after the final whistle blew on a game that the Buffs squandered away.

The defense couldn’t stop a nosebleed and the offense struggled to get any sense of a pass attack going. The culprit of bad pass attack was not the quarterback, Kaidon Salter, but rather the man calling the plays for him, Pat Shurmur.

Shurmur, who has spent the better part of three decades as an offensive-minded coach in both college and the pros, didn’t utilize his best weapons all night long. In his first game as CU’s play caller without Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter leading his offense, the flaws of his gameplan showed.

#CUBuffs head coach Deion Sanders on why the offense stalled: "Timing, personnel… I'm not gonna say what I really want to say."

— Oliver Hayes (@ocuhayes) August 30, 2025

The talk around Boulder all summer has been about how deep the wide receiver room is and how they should have no issues replacing all the talent that left for the NFL in the offseason. Shurmur failed to utilize all the talent in that room on Friday, as the receiver unit as a whole accounted for just seven catches on the night.

Seven.

If you include the tight end, that number jumps all the way up to nine. Not much better, but it helps boost the total a little bit.

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Omarion Miller, who said in fall camp that he was expecting to have a Heisman-type season, had just one catch. It was a beauty for 39 yards up the sideline to put the Buffs in field goal range before halftime. The rest of the game, he was just out there doing cardio (which wasn’t his fault). He did tweak his hamstring, but on the plays he was healthy, it seemed like Shurmur didn’t even know he was out there.

Kaidon Salter 🎯 Omarion Miller

A big time third down conversion for the @CUBuffsFootball, closing in on the first half.#Big12FB | 📺 ESPN pic.twitter.com/3XVBoNn6Ro

— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) August 30, 2025

Joseph Williams, the 2024 AAC Freshman of the Year, had just one reception late in the game. Shurmur got him the ball just one more time, a failed double pass that was disguised very poorly and fooled no one. Williams did a great job at evading a sack and getting the ball out of his hands, but that’s not how his skillset should be utilized.

The only Buffs with more than two catches on the night were both running backs, Micah Welch and DeKalon Taylor. They only had three apiece. The play calling in the pass game was very puzzling. There was a lot of horizontal passing, and not a lot of looks downfield.

In the run game, Shurmur showed creativity early with two-back sets and pulling lineman in front. The rush attack worked phenomenally on the opening drive to net the Buffs seven points, but they inexplicably went away from it on the next two.

The result? Two three-and-outs. The Buffs tried to pass the ball on six straight plays (one was broken and Salter ended up running for nine yards), almost an ode to the 2024 Buffs.

When Colorado decided to run the ball again, the creativity was gone. Shurmur started running the zone concepts that didn’t move the needle a season ago, and stopped utilizing his talented offensive line (a unit that answered a lot of questions in a good way). He also had a mobile quarterback in Salter at his disposal, and used him in the wrong way multiple times. There was not enough option in the scheme, a concept that Salter thrived off of when he was at Liberty.

There were also some confusing calls based on down, distance and time. Shurmur opened the final drive — which the Buffs began with only 67 seconds on the clock — with a swing screen to Welch, a play that lost two yards and 23 precious seconds after Coach Prime decided to save his timeouts for next week’s game. On the first drive of the second half, Colorado faced a third and short in Georgia Tech territory, and Shurmur called a rollout pass, a sign that Colorado was going to go for it on fourth down if they didn’t convert.

The play was a total bust and Salter’s pass incomplete. Instead of a fourth down play from the offense, the punt team trotted out to kick it away.

If Shurmur had called a better game, the Buffs would’ve scored more than seven points off three turnovers, and more than 20 points in a game where they had a plethora of opportunities.

The defense tried its best to help out Shurmur and the offense early. When those opportunities weren’t capitalized on, the cracks started to show defensively, which then put the burden on the offense to keep up. They managed to do so through the struggles, but Georgia Tech had one more punch to throw than the Buffs.

This is the same Shurmur that only led a top-16 offense one time in 10 seasons at the NFL level. He was not a successful coordinator at the highest level, and he hasn’t made any improvements at the collegiate level. He doesn’t have Hunter and Sanders to cover his mistakes this year, and is going to need a much better gameplan in Week 2 to earn back the trust of CU fans around the country.