The Colorado Buffaloes’ offense was stagnant against the Arizona State Sun Devils in Week 10, managing only 10 points against a defense that was ranked 15th out of 16 teams in the Big 12 in points allowed per game coming into the matchup (29.5).

Wide receiver Joseph Williams was one of Colorado’s few bright spots, as he racked up seven catches for 121 yards and a touchdown. Following the Buffaloes’ loss, he broke down what went wrong for Colorado’s offense.

The Arizona State Sun Devils’ defensive scheme

The Sun Devils had their best game defensively against a Power Four opponent in their matchup against the Buffs, which begs the question: was it the Sun Devils’ defense stepping up or the Buffaloes’ offense getting in its own way? Williams argues for the latter.

“They’re really not that good on defense,” Williams said. “In the back end, they didn’t really have many guys. One of their starters went out early in the game. They were rotating a lot; they had a freshman out there and then a guy I haven’t even seen on tape out there. So, it wasn’t anything special that they did; it was really us. We’ve got to execute; we’ve just got to take coaching and trust it so we can come out with wins. But they weren’t really that good on defense.”

How the Colorado Buffaloes can make a bowl game

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But even though the Buffaloes’ bowl chances decreased greatly with this loss, they aren’t mathematically eliminated. They’ll need to win out to earn a bid, but with the No. 17 Houston Cougars, the Cincinnati Bearcats and the UCF Knights remaining on the schedule, Williams knows they’ll need a major mentality shift.

“We’ve got to win out to get to [a bowl game],” Williams said. “If we want to do it, we’ve got to all step up as one, come together and, excuse my language, but drop our nuts at some point. We’ve got to win three games in a row to get to a bowl game, so, yeah.”

What’s been going wrong for the ‘Go-Go’ offense

But mentality can only take a team so far. At a certain point, the offense needs to line up and snap the football, and the play-calling plays just as much of a role as the players do offensively.

This season, Colorado fans expected a reinvigorated offense behind the innovative mind of offensive coordinator Brennan Marion and his ‘Go-Go’ offense. But nine games and six losses into the season, the Buffaloes have not and likely will not see that production from their new offensive scheme.

The Buffaloes haven’t gotten deep into his bag of tricks in any game except their Week 2 win over the Weber State Wildcats of the FCS.

Week 10’s contest was more of the same for Colorado, and Williams broke down who and what is to blame for the offense’s lack of success.

“I can’t speak for coach Marion as to why we haven’t gotten to many plays, but we have a lot of new plays every week,” Williams said. “So we’re seeing a lot of new plays; we’re seeing a lot of new stuff from the ‘Go-Go,’ so it’s not really on coach Marion; it’s on us. So we’ve just got to execute and drop our nuts to win the game.”