Isaac Wilson got everything he wanted from Saturday night except the result.
Facing Utah for the first time in his career, the quarterback who once started for the Utes and now calls Colorado home had a chance to deal his old team a damaging loss at Folsom Field. Instead, Utah escaped with a 27-24 win, but Wilson’s second-half surge gave the Buffaloes something real to build on.
The finish was brutal for Colorado, and Wilson’s late interception with 5:23 remaining loomed large. James Chenault picked him off, Utah cashed it in for a touchdown and suddenly the Utes were up 27-17. Utah fans let Wilson hear it, chanting “Thank you, Isaac” after the turnover.
He answered the way quarterbacks are supposed to answer - with a shot downfield. Wilson ripped a 48-yard pass to DeAndre Moore Jr., then found Moore again for a two-yard touchdown on a busted coverage to pull Colorado within three. When Utah threw on third-and-12 with 1:04 left and no Colorado timeouts, the door cracked open a little more.
Colorado tried to take advantage. Wilson scrambled and pitched to Quanell Farrakhan Jr. on what looked like a huge gain that would have moved the Buffs to the Utah 36-yard line, but replay showed it was a forward pass and the play came back to the Colorado 41. After a quick 14-yard completion, Wilson’s final heave to the end zone fell incomplete.
The missed chance left him gutted.
“I wanted this one bad. I wanted this one really bad. I was there, another man’s trash, another man’s treasure,” Wilson said.
“So hopefully I could keep it rolling for Colorado. We need a win.
That starts with me. I had a bad turnover in that second half that really caused the downfall.
Defense held their own. I got to put them in better positions, but I really wanted this one bad.
I was willing to put it all on the line.”
For much of the night, though, it looked like Wilson was in for a rough one.
Colorado opened with a flat first half, and Wilson had just 49 passing yards and an interception before the break. The Buffaloes shot themselves in the foot repeatedly, piling up eight penalties for 82 yards in the first half. They crossed into Utah territory only once in the opening two quarters, and that came after a shanked Orion Phillips punt handed them favorable field position.
“Starting out with zero points in the first half is not how we want to start. We need to play for all 60 minutes. So if we get 14 in the first half as we should have, we let penalties affect us,” Wilson said.
“But just going into halftime and them having that still effort and energy going throughout the room of ‘We’re going to win this game no matter what. We’re going to get everything and everything going right now.’
That just really says a lot about the guys of how they’re going to play all 60 minutes. They bought into it.
Everyone’s buying into it and we want to win.”
Whatever was said at halftime worked.
“We took a new approach. When it hit halftime, I talked to the team, a bunch of players chirped and we had a players meeting more like that and we just came out hot,” Wilson said.
Colorado scored on the third play of the second half when JaQuail Smith leaked free and turned a pass into a 68-yard touchdown, finally putting the Buffs on the board.
“I knew it was a touchdown after I pitched it. After I counted the box, I knew it was a touchdown.
I was running down with my hands up, but they came out hot. We came out hot and we did what we were supposed to do and we kept rolling,” Wilson said.
From there, Wilson settled in and kept finding cracks in Utah’s defense. He finished with 256 passing yards, two touchdowns, two interceptions and 41 rushing yards while completing 60% of his throws. In the second half alone, he threw for 207 yards and two scores with one pick.
He also played behind a line that didn’t allow a sack, a welcome sign for a Utah defense dealing with a growing issue up front.
Colorado fell for the fourth straight time and dropped to 2-4, but the game still felt different by the end. Wilson showed he can handle the job, and Deion Sanders made a point of saying so afterward.
“I did something I never do after the loss. I stood up there on the podium and told those kids, ‘I’m really proud of y’all, man.’ Because they fought, they didn’t give up, they had a chance,” Sanders said.
If Wilson can trim the turnovers and keep the second-half version of himself on the field, Colorado at least has a quarterback worth believing in.
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Colorados Week 7 trip to Utah ended in a three-point loss, but the bigger takeaway for the Utes was how much the Buffaloes sharpened as the game wore on. After a rough start, Colorados defense settled in and made life difficult for Devon Dampier, limiting his rushing impact and keeping steady pressure on the Utah quarterback while the offense found a better rhythm in the second half.
Isaac Wilson remains a source of frustration because of the turnovers that have followed him, yet his late-game leadership and playmaking gave Colorado something it can build on. With a few key players expected back from injury in the coming weeks, the Buffaloes have a chance to deepen their rotation and raise their level, which makes the way they finished in Salt Lake City even more important for the bigger picture. [Read more 🡒]
Colorado Just Exposed A Concern Hanging Over Utahs Big Stage
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The concern is less about style points than about whether Utah can keep the game on its terms. Colorado showed how quickly a comfortable lead can turn into a grind when the defense slips, and Houston figures to test that same discipline if the Utes are not sharp from start to finish. Avoiding a shootout matters here, as does keeping the focus intact for all four quarters, because the next few weeks will tell whether Utah is simply winning or truly controlling the moment. [Read more 🡒]
Utahs Undefeated Start Nearly Slipped Away To A Familiar Problem
Utahs unbeaten run came with a tense reminder of how slim the margin can be in conference play, and it was Isaac Wilson who helped make it interesting late. The former Utah quarterback, now at Colorado, spent the night pushing a comeback against his old program and finished with 18 completions for 256 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions in Utahs 27-24 win.
Wilson had extra motivation in the matchup, and Colorado kept chipping away until the game reached the kind of late pressure Utah has seen too often in recent seasons. The Utes survived this one, but only after weathering a final surge that forced them to sweat until the closing moments. [Read more 🡒]