Colorado without key players vs. Washington State

The Colorado Buffaloes have dropped six of their last seven games on the gridiron. They’ll look to turn things around on Friday night against Washington State, but it certainly won’t be easy. The Buffaloes will be without several players: linebacker/safety Trevor Woods, running back Kavosiey Smoke, cornerback Omarion Cooper, linebacker Brendan Gant, place kicker Jace Feely, safeties Myles Slusher and Vito Tisdale, according to Brian Howell of Buffzone.

Washington State has had their struggles of their own coming in. The Cougars have lost six straight.

The Buffaloes will only have three scholarship linebackers on defense for Friday night’s game. That’s bad news when you’re going up against one of the more dynamic quarterbacks in the Pac-12 Conference in Cameron Ward.

According to Howell, Friday night’s game in Pullman, Washington is not a sellout. It will be the first non-sellout game this season for Colorado. The Buffaloes will try to keep their slim bowl hopes alive.

Colorado’s offensive line has been one of the worst in college football history this season. They didn’t do much better on Friday night, allowing four sacks in nine plays. One of those was a strip sack, which led to a Washington State scoop and score, putting the Cougars up 14-0 in the first quarter.

Not only did Colorado trail 14-0, but Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders appeared to get injured on the play. Backup quarterback Ryan Staub came in the game for the Buffaloes for the next series, while Sanders was warming up on the sideline without a helmet on.

After Shedeur Sanders took his fourth sack of the first quarter of Colorado’s game against Washington State, he appeared slow to get up. He ended up fumbling on the play and the Cougars took it back for a scoop-and-score, meaning the Buffaloes offense had to get right back on the field.

Eventually Sanders would return to the game, and he eluded pressure, tossing a beautiful 45-yard touchdown pass to Travis Hunter. That made the score, 14-7 in the first quarter.

But the Buffaloes gave up a 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown on the next kickoff. That put Washington State up 21-7 with 43 seconds left in the first quarter. One thing is clear, the winner of Friday night’s game is going to have to score plenty of points.

The final game of the season for Washington State will be the Apple Cup, where they’ll face the Washington Huskies. That one will be on Saturday, November 25th. Colorado will finish off their regular season with a tough matchup against the No. 22 ranked Utah Utes.

On3’s Nick Schultz also contributed to this article.