SOUR COMEBACK
Stanford QB Mills makes a strong return, but Colorado holds off rally
The return of quarterback Davis Mills wasn’t enough for Stanford to get its first win of the season.
The Cardinal fell to Colorado 35-32 Saturday at Stanford Stadium, undone by too many miscues on defense and an offense that took way too long to get going.
“The (players are) upset and they should be,” Cardinal coach David Shaw said. “I’m upset, and I should be.”
Mills rejoined the team on Thursday night after he missed the seasonopening 35-14 loss at Oregon because of a false positive COVID-19 test. He was 31 of 56 passing for 327 yards and a touchdown, threw for two 2-point conversions, and added 36 yards and a touchdown rushing.
The Cardinal (0-2, 0-2) scored 16 straight points in the final nine minutes and got the ball back on its 8-yard line with 10 seconds left, but a series of laterals couldn’t move the ball forward as Stanford lost its sixth straight game dating back to last season.
Here are the five biggest takeaways from the home opener:
MILLS RETURNS >> After being forced to watch the Oregon game from his hotel room, Mills immediately went into isolation when he returned home. He was allowed to rejoin the team in time for Friday’s practice, and the Pac-12 eventually apologized for the testing protocol errors stemming from Davis’s situation.
But his return wasn’t a panacea for a Stanford offense that went 1 of 8 on third down in the first half and took almost three quarters to find the end zone. The junior actually completed his first four passes on Stanford’s opening drive, but couldn’t get much going after that until Colorado built up a big lead.
“We don’t know how the Oregon game goes if he’s able to play,” Shaw said. “We don’t know how this game goes if he’s able to practice all week. Those are things that are unknown. I think it was obvious that he was rusty. It’s unfortunate. I’m not happy about it, by any stretch of the imagination. Not much we could have done about it. But to say that it didn’t affect his performance, I think would be inaccurate. So hopefully we’ll play much better from here on out. We’re capable.”
Connor Wedington, who also missed the first game because of contract tracing protocols stemming from Mills’ test, had a game-high eight catches for 77 yards and a 2-point conversion in his return.
DEFENSIVE BREAKDOWNS >> The defense gave up 35 points for the second straight game and was again caught out of position too many times against a running quarterback.
Twice, linebacker Jordan
Fox got sucked inside on a fake handoff, allowing quarterback Sam Noyer to run for easy touchdowns. And when cornerback Salim TurnerMuhammed blitzed, safety Kendall Williamson didn’t slide over, causing Colorado receiver Brenden Rice to get wide open for a 34-yard touchdown.
“A lot of times we kind of lost our eyes on the back end and that’s things we can’t if we want to be a great defense,” said safety Malik Antoine, who intercepted Noyer in the first quarter for the game’s only turnover. “It comes down to execution. When guys do their job, we’re really good, but when one of our 11 makes a mistake, it shows against a good team.” NO RUN SUPPORT >> It wasn’t a good sign for Stanford that Mills also led the team in rushing.
After getting 193 yards against Oregon, running backs Austin Jones and Nathaniel Peat only gained 30 yards on 14 carries against Colorado, which employed a lot of pre-snap movement and inside pressure to get
penetration.
“(Jones) barely got back to the line most of the day. That’s them out-scheming us and outperforming us,” Shaw said. “We believe that Austin’s got a chance to be an outstanding running back, but we got to get him to the line of scrimmage. That just didn’t happen with any regularity today.”
On the other side, Jarek Broussard, who ran for 187 yards in the opener, had 121 yards on 27 carries for the Buffaloes, who are 2- 0 for the fifth straight season.
LATE COMEBACK >> Jet Toner, who missed all four of his field goal attempts last week, connected from 48, 33, and 28 yards Saturday, but those were the only points for the Cardinal in the first half. After scoring just 14 points in seven trips inside the Oregon 35 last week, Stanford again stalled in the red zone against the Buffaloes and trailed 14-9 at halftime.
Then Colorado scored touchdow ns on three straight possessions to start the second half, taking a 3516 lead on the first play of the fourth quarter.
Stanford’s offense finally caught fire from there, going on two long touchdown drives while the defense held Colorado to one first down on its final three drives.
“We got to keep that urgency that we felt in the second half and just kind of use it the rest of the year now,” said Mills, who threw for 143 yards in the fourth quarter.
UNUSUAL ENVIRONMENT >> The Cardinal lost a home opener for the first time since 2007, though it was far from a typical home game. Instead of fans, Stanford played in front of nearly 300 cardboard cutouts of famous Stanford alumni, former players and coaches, and family members of current players. Stanford also placed 470 trees around the field that will be replanted throughout after the season.
“It’s definitely different with the fans, but it just puts the onus on us as players to keep up the energy and really go out and execute,” Mills said.
Stanford is back at Stanford Stadium next Saturday at 8 p.m. against Washington State.