Joel Klatt believes ‘complete’ Colorado changes Big 12's landscape

Colorado had one of their best games of the past year and a half this past weekend at UCF. Now, with what they showed in Orlando and have been showing over the last few weeks of the season, Joel Klatt has them factoring into the Big 12.

Klatt selected the recent developments for the Buffaloes as a top surprise of this year on his show on Wednesday. He sees them as a more complete team now that will more so affect what happens in their conference now over the next two months.

“All of a sudden, we got a version of this Colorado Buffaloes team that we have never seen before. So the complete Colorado showed up and now, all of a sudden, that is an incredible surprise in college football and it’s changing the dynamic of the Big 12.”

That starts with the improvement on the defensive side of the ball for CU. After allowing 27 ppg. and 391.5 yards over their first two, Colorado is giving up averages that are down to 20.3 ppg. and 371.7 over their last three.

“The defense has been a lot better. I thought that the defense played their best and most complete game against UCF,” said Klatt. “(Robert) Livingston, their defensive coordinator, has been tremendous.”

However, it was a shift to their offense that Klatt noticed and noted as maybe the most important development. He saw them utilizing a different approach that created more success for their unit which was already their best to begin with. As such, it led to a season-high of 48 points last weekend against the Knights.

“We all knew that they were going to be able to play offense but here’s the difference. Early in the season, Colorado was using a lot of what’s called 10 personnel, which means four wide receivers on the field and only one back. When you have 10 personnel on the field, it is very difficult to control the defense. You can’t put them in conflict. It’s very difficult to get anything from a misdirection going on, in particular in the backfield,” Klatt explained. “They’re sitting in ten personnel and Nebraska just beats them up. I mean beats them up and, candidly, some other teams did too but they won the football game.”

“Then you go to the UCF film. You’re like, ‘Hold on, this looks markedly different?’. Let me tell you what they did. I turned on that film against UCF and, all of a sudden, they’re in 11 personnel and they were in 11 personnel a lot. They went from 80% in 10 personnel to about 80% in 11 personnel…Just putting an H-back or a tight end on the field did wonders for the complexity and diversity of their offense. It did wonders,” continued Klatt. “Everything changed just with a personnel change with Colorado. I firmly believe that they’re going to lean heavily into this because, even during the game against UCF? I will tell you. When they got out of 11 and went back to 10? Didn’t look as good. It did not look as good.”

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With that, Colorado is 4-1 and, though two league games, in a three-way tie for first in the Big 12. They could also be more difficult to play than ever with what they’re doing as a team overall.

“It made them such a complete team,” said Klatt. “If they stick to that, they will be very difficult to beat in the Big 12.”