Colorado Football Weekend - Broncos Welcome The Seahawks, Air Force Takes On The Sooners

Every Friday through the end of the seasons we will be breaking down all of the local football games of the week and highlighting a few of the other games of note for the weekend. We won't be predicting the outcomes here, we will leave that for all of you in the comment section.

College Football:

Hawaii Warriors @ Colorado Buffaloes - Boulder, CO - 1:30 Fox College Sports
Colorado -12.5
Last week's 52-7 results  against the California Golden Bears was exactly what Buff fans did not want to see and are much too familiar with. Confidence in the team and the coaching staff is waning and a tough foe, with a very strong offense is coming to Boulder for the first home game of the 2010 season. The Hawaii Warriors have been traveling for almost two weeks and have spent their time since playing Army in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, the Buffaloes will be unveiling 1990 National Championship throwback uniforms and honoring Hall of Fame inductee Alfred Williams before the game, hopefully creating somewhat of an emotional wave that can help Colorado start the game fast. If the coaching staff wants the wheels to stay on this bus, they have to make sure that CU takes care of business on Saturday and The Ralphie Report says it's up to the offensive line:

Matchups I'm Watching:

Hansen vs. the CU Offensive Line.

-Wait, David, why is this a matchup between two elements of the same team? Well, that was one of the biggest problems with the game last week. Hansen didn't have time and couldn't get comfortable. If the O-line doesn't get in Hansen's way, our Offense can explode. Hansen is no Matt Barkley (4 TDs against Hawaii in week one), but he can have some success.

Air Force Falcons @ Oklahoma Sooners - Norman, OK - 1:30 Fox Sports Net
Air Force +16.5
The Air Force Falcons are flying high after taking care of BYU 35-14 in Colorado Springs on Saturday. Their next test comes quickly as the team now heads to Norman, Oklahoma to take on the seventh ranked Sooners. Oklahoma rebounded from a slow start in week one to reassert themselves in the championship race with a 47-17 beat down of the Florida State Seminoles. The key to this game will be how Oklahoma can handle Air Force's unique triple option offense. The OU blog Crimson and Cream Machine, does a great job breaking down the Sooners responsibilities on Saturday: 

The key to defending the triple option attack is defending first down. If the Sooners can stop the Falcons to little to no gain on first down and force a second and even third and long then they'll drastically change the options that Air Force has for play calling. To do that, though, the Sooners have to have the right scheme and play assignment football.

Blitzing is typically a bad idea against the triple option because a good quarterback can read it and make you pay for not having a guy in the right place. So now we're talking straight up football so assignment and tackling become top priority. Oklahoma is going to have to play close to the line of scrimmage to stop the ball which puts you in danger if something gets behind you.

For the Falcons defense to hold off the Sooners, they will have to limit the Oklahoma playmakers and get pressure on quarterback Landry Jones. Hopefully a visit from Fisher DeBerry before the game will help them do just that.

Colorado State Rams @ Miami (Ohio) Redhawks - Oxford, OH - 1:30 ESPN3
Colorado State +7.5
The Rams have had a mighty tough start to the season, scoring a combined nine points in tough losses to Colorado and Nevada. True freshman Pete Thomas has done alright while learning the nuances of running a college offense, but he isn't getting much help as the running game has stumbled to just 63.5 rushing yards in two games. The Miami Redhawks have done slightly better, losing to Florida and squeaking out a victory last week over Eastern Washington. MWCConnection calls this a winnable game for the Rams, something they haven't exactly taken advantage of over the last two seasons:

The Rams defense needs to create some turnovers. They have just one interception so far and no fumbles recovered. The defense hasn't had many if any big hits to gain momentum and have tackled very poorly with 22 missed tackles last week against Nevada. For what was suppose to be the strength of the team they have been disappointing. The Rams have had issues stopping the run up front as other teams have used the Rams small size against them. Its up to the linebackers to step up and block the running lanes.

This game is being shown on ESPN3.com which will be an interesting viewing experience. This game will be a toss up as the Rams have not played well at all on offense and traveling to play for the third week this year. The Red Hawks got a win at home last weekend and look to get a streak going against the Rams. Colorado State can win this game, but they could have won about 6 games last year instead of 3 so we will see how this game goes...

Other Games Of Note:

#12 Arkansas @ Georgia - Athens, GA - 10:00 ESPN
#8 Nebraska @ Washington - Seattle, WA - 1:30 ABC
#10 Florida @ Tennessee - Knoxville, TN - 1:30 CBS
#6 Texas @ Texas Tech - Lubbock, TX - 6:00 ABC
#9 Iowa @ #24 Arizona - Tuscon, AZ - 8:30 ESPN

NFL:

Seattle Seahawks @ Denver Broncos - Denver, CO - 2:05 FOX
Broncos -3
The Denver Broncos were unable to take advantage of a winnable road game against the Jacksonville Jaguars last week but there were still a lot of positives to take away from the game. As Mile High Report notes, quarterback Kyle Orton was more than good enough to win, really missing on only four throws and tossing five completions of 25+ yards. That kind of play from Orton for the Broncos to take down the Seattle Seahawks at home. Seattle pulled off the most surprising victory of week one, beating San Francisco 31-6 in a game that was never even close. We'll figure out this weekend whether that result was a function of Seattle being that good under first year head coach Pete Carroll or just a total crap effort from the 49ers. 

Other Games Of Note:

Pittsburgh Steelers @ Tennessee Titans - Nashville, TN - 11:00 NFL Sunday Ticket
New England Patriots @ New York Jets - East Rutherford, NJ - 2:15 NFL Sunday Ticket
New York Giants @ Indianapolis Colts - Indianapolis, IN - 6:20 NBC