Despite a few brief moments of brilliance and excitement, Ryan Staub had a night mostly to forget in his second career start. Houston physically overwhelmed Colorado on both sides of the ball, and the Buffs' offense was stuck in the mud for most of the night.
Staub led back-to-back touchdown drives in the second quarter to turn a 13-0 deficit to just 16-14 at halftime. But the offense struggled to generate much of anything in the second half.
Colorado ran just five plays in the third quarter, and after a 12-of-20 first half, Staub didn't complete a pass in the second half until there was 11:13 remaining in the game. He threw a bad interception to open the fourth quarter - and another on Colorado's last offensive possession - and by the time the offense was able to muster anything, the Buffs found themselves down 33-14.
Staub did throw a nice touchdown pass to Joseph Williams when the game was all but over, but Colorado leaves its Big 12 opener with a lot more questions than answers.
The defense once again got bludgeoned on the ground, allowing over 200 rushing yards. The offense will need to be spectacular moving forward if the defense is going to be a sieve. Right now, the offense looks average at best. In the second half, the Buffs managed just 87 total yards of offense.
Deion Sanders needs to pick a QB and stick with him
There's an old adage in football: if you have two quarterbacks, you don't have any. Deion Sanders is finding out that adding another QB to that is no better. Three games into the season, and Colorado does not have a stable situation under center.
Ryan Staub is a nice story. But Colorado went out this offseason and paid significant money to get Kaidon Salter out of the Transfer Portal and to sign Julian Lewis in the high school class. It's baffling, in hindsight, that a nice half of football against FBS newcomer Delaware made Sanders give the keys to Staub.
The redshirt sophomore wasn't even mentioned in the QB competition throughout the spring and summer. It was always Salter vs. Lewis. It's stunning that Staub got a legitimate shot a week ago. It'll be even more stunning if he is the guy moving forward.
But whoever the guy is needs to be the guy. The QBs can't consistently be looking over their shoulders, worried that a few bad plays might put them on the bench. Credit to Sanders for one thing: no matter how much the offense struggled in stretches at Houston, he stuck with Staub.
All eyes will be on what Coach Prime does going forward. It might decide the fate of a season that's looking more and more underwhelming.