New Guy completed seven of 14 attempts for 71 yards and a touchdown. Only sort of impressive compared Cody Hawkins (six of eleven). Unless, of course, you like a quarterback who can run, take a hit, get back up, and do it again. Hansen rushed for 98 yards in nineteen carries, two sacks net him out to 86. His rushing production average tied that of everyone's favorite uncle, Josh Smith, at 4.5 per carry. Speaking of guys with a #9 on there jersey that are fun to watch, how about D.J. Dykes? Four tackles and the ten yard sack of the game to pin the Wildcats deep against their own goal line.

Cody Hawkins didn't go totally unemployed, Hansen and Hawkins split duties, sometimes rotating every play. After marginal performance, the crowd was calling for Cody's head, but a twenty two yard tag on Josh Smith silenced the masses temporarily as Hawkins pulled the Buffs away from 3rd and 15 to move the ball deeper into K-State territory.

Coach Hawk had all things to say about the quarterback situation in the post game press conference, here is a highlight about Hansen's Redshirt: "Maybe it was because of his legs, you know he can really run. It was a huge sacrifice for him, but I think it also speaks to the kind of camaraderie we have on our team. . . Obviously for Matt (Ballenger) to take a step back a little bit, versus him stepping forward, and even Cody had to give a few things up. I'm just really pleased with our program and our guys, because I think they're really getting what this whole thing is about. I think that's the biggest lesson for them. It's not something that you want to do necessarily, but we talked to Tyler, it's not something we would have made him do. We just said, 'How do you feel about it?' And he didn't hesitate an instant; I mean he was on it."

So let's get right down to it, it felt good to win one again. And yeah, the Buffs failed to cover the spread, knocking all of your Buffs.tv editors down a point this week, but it is a win none the less. In case you missed it, the whole thing wrapped up 14-13 in favor of the Silver and Gold. Colorado out performed Kansas State in almost every offensive category, except net passing yards. The Wildcats gave up 84 yards in penalties, two fumbles, and missed two field goal attempts. The Buffalo defense was solid. Rod Stewart continued to produce great numbers. None of the freshman in the stands understand why that matters, because most were only three years old when original Rod Stewart was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

On a pretty sweet personal note, Coach Hawkins showed up in my MBA Organizational Behavior class last Wednesday night. He talked a lot about setting an expectation and ideal of success, and getting people to buy in to that program. He essentially said that it has nothing to do with football or winning, and if you can get your arms around that you'll be better at both. He also went on a full "This Ain't Intramurals" style rant about the Buffs 3-3 record going into this game.

Hawk had just come from his radio show, and apparently the media (wait, that's us, right) sort of got into it about the 3-3 record, so he gave our class a statistics lesson. If you can try to imagine calm coach Hawk building up the story about the Buffs joining the Big 12 in 1996, and then calmly asking the class to speculate on the win/loss record since that time. After calmly confirming that Colorado has won just over 50% of games since 1996, he unleashed the beast and screamed something like, "So what am I going to do about being 3 and 3? We've been a .500 ball club for eleven years, man."

And man, you're right. But it does anyone else feel like that is about to change? As it turns out, losing to Texas doesn't really put the Buffs in a minority group. Nebraska is horrible this year, and Iowa State lost to them. A&M is clearly beatable. Missouri and Oklahoma State are poised to be real deal games, but Hawk didn't pull Hansen's shirt for nothing.

Let's Go Buffs!