Shedeur Sanders completed 25 of 30 passes for 323 yards and two touchdowns while adding a rushing touchdown as Colorado beat Cincinnati 34-23 on Saturday night in Boulder, Colo.
Sanders connected on his first 15 passes and didn’t throw an incompletion until 3:37 was left in the second quarter. Colorado (6-2, 4-1 Big 12) is bowl-eligible in a full season for the first time since 2016.
Travis Hunter had nine catches on nine targets for 153 yards and two touchdowns. Jimmy Horn Jr. had five catches for 78 yards and Isaiah Augustave had 91 rushing yards on 22 carries with a touchdown.
Brendan Sorsby completed 16 of 30 passes for 180 yards and passed for two touchdowns for Cincinnati. Corey Kiner rushed for 94 yards on 17 carries and Evan Pryor had a rushing touchdown in the loss. Joe Royer had 50 receiving yards and a touchdown and Tony Johnson had 54 yards and a touchdown catch.
Colorado scored on its first possession when Sanders found Hunter for a 3-yard touchdown catch with 9:32 left in the first.
Cincinnati (5-3, 3-2) answered on its next drive as Sorsby’s 6-yard pass was caught by Johnson in the corner of the end zone to tie the score at 7-7. The highlight of the seven-play, 74-yard drive was a 40-yard swing pass from Sorsby to Pryor.
The first quarter ended with Sanders’ 4-yard touchdown run that gave Colorado a 14-7 lead.
On Cincinnati’s first possession of the second quarter, Pryor spun into the end zone on a 13-yard run to tie the score 14-14.
With 3:28 left in the second quarter, Alejandro Mata drilled a 28-yard field goal to give Colorado a 17-14 lead. After the Colorado defense held Cincinnati on fourth down, Sanders lofted a 34-yard touchdown pass to Hunter for a 24-14 Colorado lead with three seconds left in the first half.
Colorado scored on its first four possessions and the Bearcats trailed at halftime for the first time all year.
After the teams traded punts to start the second half, Augustave capped a six-play, 62-yard drive with a 7-yard touchdown run to extend the Colorado lead to 31-14.
The Bearcats settled for a 32-yard field goal by Nathan Hawks to cut the Colorado lead to 31-17 with 9:20 left in the fourth quarter. Cincinnati made it a one-score game with 3:51 to play when Sorsby connected with Royer for a 6-yard touchdown to make the score 31-23. The two-point conversion failed.
A 47-yard field goal late in the fourth quarter by Mata just cleared the crossbar to pad the Buffaloes lead at 34-23.
–Field Level Media
