The 2025 Colorado football season was one to forget. A 3-9 campaign that followed a 9-4 breakthrough in 2024, and now the future picture in Boulder is murky under Deion Sanders.
Picking the worst game of the season for Colorado isn't easy: the Buffs had plenty of low moments, though one stands out more than the others.
2022 comes to mind when thinking about this game, where Colorado lost on average by 29.1 points. It should be noted that this game followed their best performance of the season, which is discussed later in this article.
Utah's blowout of Colorado was the low point for the Buffs
The Buffaloes faced true freshman quarterback Byrd Ficklin, who filled in for the injured Devon Dampier. He completed just 10-of-22 passes for 140 yards and two touchdowns.
It was more effective for him to run the ball, carrying the ball 20 times for 151 yards and a touchdown.
Running back Wayshawn Parker added 145 yards on 10 carries as Utah went on to win by the final score of 53-7.
Utah finished with 587 yards, 422 on the ground.
Colorado on the other hand only mustered 140 total yards and accounted for -18 yards at the half.
The team benched quarterback Kaidon Salter after he went 9-of-22 through the air for only 37 yards.
Backup Ryan Staub came in and went 4-of-8 for 65 yards in his place.
Utah performed a trick play with punter Orion Phillips and he completed a pass for 25 yards. That was more than what Salter (23) had at halftime.
As if the game wasn’t already weird enough, the leading rusher for Colorado was Kam Mikell with 44 yards on eight carries.
The win over Iowa State wasn't a sign of things to come for Colorado
It is truly hard to believe that Colorado had their most complete game of the season a few weeks prior to the Utah blowout.
Colorado quarterback Kaidon Salter finished first among all quarterbacks with a 92.0 passing grade against No. 22 rankedIowa State.
This was the type of performance Colorado and their fans expected from him throughout the season.
Salter completed 16 of 25 passes for 255 yards and two touchdowns, including a 70-yarder to Omarion Miller just after the halftime break that put Colorado four points in front.
This was the breakout game for wide receiver Joseph Williams, who caught eight passes for 128 yards and a score.
Colorado wasn’t very efficient in stopping the run as backup running back Abu Sama III ran for 177 yards and two scores.
To their credit, the defense pressured Iowa State quarterback Rocco Becht very well.
Becht completed just 18-of-33 passes for 205 yards while throwing an interception.
Tawfiq Byard was the player who picked him off and finished with a team-high seven tackles while donning a cast on his left hand.
Colorado's season was filled with ups and downs, but mostly downs, and nothing can summarize the season better than these two games within two weeks of each other.