The Colorado Buffaloes are hoping to pull off a miracle by rebounding their season from a 2-5 start to obtain bowl eligibility down the home stretch. Colorado has three games remaining on its schedule that wouldn’t necessarily be considered upsets if they emerged victorious, with matchups against the Arizona State Sun Devils, Cincinnati Bearcats and UCF Knights.

The Buffaloes need to win at least three of their final four games to complete that comeback, but that isn’t something that can happen if they don’t fix some of their bad habits. These three things are the biggest keys to the Buffaloes turning their season around and heading to a bowl game at the end of the season.

Limiting penalties

The Buffaloes’ most recurring issue has been their high penalty count. Even in Colorado’s win over the Kansas State Wildcats on Saturday, it lost the penalty battle. It was penalized eight times for 53 yards to the Wildcats’ five penalties for 35 yards. 

The Buffaloes have had eight or more penalties in all games but one this season, and that exception was their Week 1 win over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. In an up-and-down season for the Buffaloes, consistent penalties have been an absolute killer.

“We've got to have some kind of consistency,” said Colorado coach Deion Sanders on Tuesday, Oct. 27. “That's the only thing we're consistent in is getting penalties, and that doesn't make sense to me. But we've got to do better. Got to prepare much better.”

Leaning on the run game

While it would also be easy to point to the turnovers of quarterback Isaac Wilson as something that needs to be eliminated if the Buffs have bowl hopes, it's a deeper issue than that. The Buffaloes knew when they recruited Wilson in the transfer portal that he is a turnover-prone quarterback, something that has held true this season.

But he isn’t going to turn the ball over if he’s put in the right situation. When the Buffaloes had Wilson throwing the ball upwards of 25 times, even as many as 44, against the then-No. 12 Texas Tech Red Raiders, it was no wonder that he was throwing interceptions at a high rate.

Against K-State, though, Buffs offensive coordinator Brennan Marion took a much healthier approach. He leaned on Colorado’s run game, led by bruising running back Richard Young.

Young rushed for a dominant 120 yards and two touchdowns on 24 carries, and the Buffaloes rushed for a Coach Prime Era-record 222 yards on the day. The reliance on the run prevented Wilson from feeling the need to play hero ball, and his lack of turnovers reflected that.

Colorado needs to continue relying on the run in a similar fashion moving forward to give the offense a much more reliable framework in its bowl push.

Blitzing the lights out

Defensively, it’s a similar story. It would be easy to point to Colorado’s cornerbacks and say that their coverage needs to improve, but at this point in the year, it has been identified that cornerback is one of the Buffs’ weakest positions. 

With that fact unlikely to change, the Buffaloes need to lean on their strong pass rush to alleviate some of the pressure off of the corners. 

Colorado’s defensive line is packed with NFL-level talent. Lamont Lester Jr., Toby Anene and Santana Hopper have been game-wreckers in the backfield all season long. On top of that, Yamil Talib just had a breakout game against the Wildcats, recording two sacks and eight total tackles.

The Buffaloes need to send pressure at enormous rates down the stretch, as that is the only way they can compensate for the struggles in the secondary.