Santana Hopper has a name for the chances a defensive lineman gets on a Saturday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe call them ops, like, short for opportunities,\u201d the Colorado defensive lineman said.<\/p>\n
Against No. 12 Texas Tech, he took most of his. Hopper made 10 tackles, five of them behind the line of scrimmage, in a 29-7 loss at Folsom Field.<\/a> His position coach, Dante Carter, talked this week about players taking hold of the moment<\/a>. Hopper said the message landed.<\/p>\n \u201cMy coach talked about being in the moment a lot, and I had a lot of moments out there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t enough on a night when the Buffaloes threw four second-half interceptions. For most of the game, though, Colorado\u2019s defense gave its offense every chance to win it.<\/p>\n First-half stands<\/p>\n Texas Tech came into Boulder averaging 429.5 yards a game. It finished with 315, its fewest this season. Will Hammond threw for 134 yards, also a season low, and the Red Raiders converted on just 3-of-12 third downs.<\/p>\n The first half was the defense\u2019s best work. Tech had three points at the break, and the Buffs made the two biggest stops of the night on fourth down plays.<\/p>\n The first came right after Colorado\u2019s fake punt failed near midfield. Tech went for it on fourth-and-1 at the Colorado 41. Safety Naeten Mitchell, the same player who had been stopped short on the fake, dropped J\u2019Koby Williams for a 4-yard loss. Later in the quarter, Tech had fourth-and-1 at the Colorado 7. Linebacker Gideon Lampron met Quinten Joyner at the line for no gain.<\/p>\n Lampron finished with 10 tackles. Safety Randon Fontenette added nine, along with an 11-yard sack on Tech\u2019s first drive of the second half that helped force a punt. Defensive end Toby Anene also had a sack in the final minutes of the first half.<\/p>\n When one lineman makes a play, Hopper said, the man next to him wants to match it.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it\u2019s like we just feed off each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Short fields<\/p>\n The interceptions changed the math. Twelve of Tech\u2019s points came on drives that started after a Colorado interception. Seven more came on John Curry\u2019s pick-six, with the defense on the sideline.<\/p>\n Isaac Wilson, who threw three of the four interceptions, said he owed his defense an apology.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve still got to go apologize to them,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cThey\u2019re getting stops within our own 30-yard line.\u201d<\/p>\n Three days earlier, Hopper had said the line wanted to play four full quarters. Asked how close it came, he put the line on the final minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like we played good ball up to like the last five minutes of the fourth quarter,\u201d Hopper said.<\/p>\n Head coach Deion Sanders said his defense \u201cdid some phenomenal things.\u201d Asked about his confidence in the team, he singled it out.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m confident in them as a unit, as a group, particularly the defense,\u201d Sanders said.<\/p>\n The Buffs did it without linebacker Tyler Martinez, whom Sanders called \u201ca tremendous leader.\u201d Sanders said the linebackers who have stepped in \u201care doing a good darn job.\u201d<\/p>\n Believing in the other side<\/p>\n Hopper didn\u2019t point a finger at the offense. He said he was surprised by how the night went for it.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very surprised because those guys are hard-working guys,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe in everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Colorado (2-3, 0-2 Big 12) has a bye before hosting Utah on Oct 17. Hopper said some players are banged up and could use the time to get healthy. His plan following the loss is simple.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mentality is to flush this loss,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Santana Hopper has a name for the chances a defensive lineman gets on a Saturday night. \u201cWe call…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51965,51966,60288,261,416,943,944,16309,3607,251,223,154,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-456777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-boulder","tag-boulder-county","tag-buffzone","tag-college-football","tag-college-sports","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-news","tag-front-range","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}