10:03

Buffalo football is back!  As the offense got the ball back I looked at Dennis and we both said we just needed to run off some clock and get some kind of score;  Mark Johnson and Larry Zimmer echoed that on the radio.  Tyler took the snap and handed off to Speedy, again and again, only stopping to occasionally hand it off to Tony Jones (who finally got some touches and looked great!) or run himself.   It was a thing of beauty as they plugged down the field, kept it in bounds and cranked time off the clock, finishing with Tyler's second rushing TD of the day.  He might have mixed in a 3rd down pass too, but Tyler's best play of the night was his awesome pump fake and juke to lose a defender, sprint down the sidelines, and then he dove to stay in bounds!  The team put together their most complete game by far and notched the first win of the season and of the Embree era.  It was a sweet walk away from the stadium today.  While there were still some things to correct, the defense was solid, giving up very little and the offense was able to move the ball when they needed to.  Here's a couple of observations (I will go deeper tomorrow or Monday):

• Listening to Sandy Clough on the drive down I heard Chad Brown say that CSU always plays very tough for about 1 1/2 quarters before the adrenaline slows and the game settles down. That is exactly what happened. After Polk made that hit, the offense went down and scored. Then, they got the break on the tipped punt (2nd game in a row?!) and a marvelous throw-catch by Hansen to Cefalo right before halftime.
• The first thing I noticed when I sat down and scanned the field for tackles was that Travis Sandersfeld was in a boot!  It was announced later he broke something in practice Thursday, but will be back.  The corners played great without him as Orms and Henderson were both solid in coverage and tackling.  Deji and Terrel Smith both played a lot as well.
• Turned out Bahktiari was indeed out.  Although announced and written differently, the actual starters were Tau at RT and Kelley at LT.  Dannewitz came in for a so-so Kelley mid-way thru that key 2nd quarter and played the rest of the way.
• The only O-line positions that have been basically the same are the guards.  C Munyer went down with what looks like another knee injury and Handler played most of the 4th I think.
• Safeties made some big hits, especially Polk's that created an incompletion in the 2nd quarter that helped change the momentum.
• Rippy was quieter but defense as a whole held CSU to under 250 yards and made some key plays at key junctures (although they did still give up some long 3rd downs).
• Richardson followed up his freak-out game with a terrible performance which included 3 dropped balls, an uncalled for stare-back at Tyler for a ball thrown behind him, and numerous times being confused and unable to line-up correctly.  CSU did a lot of bracketing and doublling to make it difficult for him, but he looked like a completely different player.  Hopefully Bobby Kennedy can get him straightened out.
• Fortunately, Tony Clemons showed up with one long TD (and a stupid-he even admitted it-penalty) and almost another long TD that was just overthrown (Rip Scherer and Tyler need to fix this as he has overthrown 2 TDs in each game).
• Speedy had over 200 all-purpose yards-19 rushes for 98 yards, 7 catches for 93 and 2 punt returns for 9 yards. 
• CSU tried to run the screen against us but after the first 2 we stuffed them again and again.  No one is going to run that well against our D since they get to practive against the best.  I think EB might be giving Speedy his touches and yards that way so he doesn't get the rushing record.
• Justin Castor got to kickoff and was pretty good until instead of squibbing the last one down the middle of the field, he kicked it out of bounds. 
• Most of all, best of all, it was a W!