Colorado blocks late kick, survives Georgia Tech 14-13
Boo Carter blocked Georgia Tech's game-winning field goal as time expired, and Julian Lewis found Charlie Williams with 37 seconds left to send Colorado home from Atlanta with an opening night win.
Julian Lewis goes home to Georgia and leaves with a road win nobody saw coming
Julian Lewis's homecoming ended the way Deion Sanders said he wanted it to. Down 13-7 with under 8 minutes left after Georgia Tech blocked a Colorado field goal, Lewis drove the Buffs 76 yards and hit tight end Charlie Williams for a 20-yard touchdown with 37 seconds on the clock, per the Associated Press. He finished 14-of-27 for 124 yards, and 60 of those yards came on that final drive alone. Then Boo Carter, who had already scooped a fumble at Georgia Tech's 26-yard line in the first quarter, got a hand on Aidan Birr's 45-yard field-goal attempt as time expired to seal it. It is Colorado's first win over an ACC opponent since the 1957 Orange Bowl and its first true road win since beating Texas Tech in 2024, according to Brett McMurphy on the wire — McMurphy noted the Buffs had dropped 7 straight away from Boulder before Thursday.
Georgia Tech14-13
It was not clean. ESPN's Adam Rittenberg called it "a slop fest" between two teams playing their first game, and Chris Vannini flagged Colorado pushing inside Georgia Tech's 40-yard line 5 times for only 7 points before that last drive — "just so many self-inflicted mistakes," as he put it. Defensive lineman Lamont Lester Jr. kept Colorado in it either way, piling up 3 sacks. One name missing reps was receiver Danny Scudero, who was a game-time call on a foot injury heading into kickoff; fellow receiver K. Perry was also questionable with an elbow issue, per Covers' injury table. Sanders had said all week he had "no nostalgia" for the trip back to the state where Lewis grew up — his freshman quarterback gave him a much better souvenir than that.
Brennan Marion's ground game showed up 49 times, and Bruce Feldman noticed
The final score will get remembered for the block, but the stranger stat is buried in the play-by-play: Colorado ran the ball 49 times, its most in a game since 2020, per Bruce Feldman on the wire, who called new offensive coordinator Brennan Marion's system "a total 180" for a program that spent last season trying to throw its way out of trouble. Running back Micah Welch punched in a 5-yard touchdown and finished with 58 yards on the ground, and transfer back Damien Henderson II added another 65. At one stretch Colorado ran it 15 straight times, according to Chris Vannini, daring Georgia Tech to prove it could stop the same play twice.
It is a legitimate reversal for a Colorado team that leaned on the pass to a fault a year ago, and it is also why Lewis's final numbers look modest for a game-winning performance — this offense is not built to pile up 300-yard nights, it is built to wear a defense down and let a freshman quarterback make one throw when it matters. Georgia Tech's Brayden Manley had told reporters before kickoff he was "going for two [sacks]" against the first-time starter, per Essentially Sports. Marion's Buffs made sure the only two that mattered were Lester's third-quarter takedowns, not anything hung on Lewis.
Christensen's eligibility fight hits a wall in Boulder County, but it isn't over
Ezra Christensen's path to Boulder was never a normal one. He grew up in an orphanage in Sierra Leone, was adopted at 16 with no knowledge of American football or the NCAA rulebook, and lost his senior year of high school to the pandemic. He started college at San Diego Mesa, a junior college, in 2022, before two seasons at Fresno State and a 2025 stop at New Mexico State, where he made first-team All-CUSA with 11 tackles for loss and six sacks — numbers that led all FBS defensive linemen in total quarterback hurries (28) and ranked third among interior linemen in Pro Football Focus grading. He arrived at Colorado this offseason still needing the NCAA to grant him a fifth year to play.
That fight got harder this week. A Boulder County district court judge denied Christensen's motion for a preliminary injunction, according to DNVR Sports and On3, leaving him ineligible for the fall as things stand. His attorney, Darren Heitner, who has beaten the NCAA in court before, told 247Sports the team is looking into filing an emergency motion for reconsideration — a motion that, as of this week, is still pending rather than filed. It's a separate case from the broader Colorado ruling that already unlocked fifth years for players like Florida's Denzel Aberdeen and USF's Traevon Mitchell this summer, but for now it leaves one of Colorado's best returning pass-rushers on the outside looking in for the opener.
Folsom Field is next, and Weber State is coming off a win too
Colorado gets its home opener on September 12 vs. Weber State, and the crowd will have plenty to be loud about after Thursday. The Wildcats are not a walkover — they opened their own season with a 30-29 win at Northern Colorado and arrive at Folsom Field 1-0 themselves. No line has been set on the game yet.
It is also the first look Boulder gets at Marion's ground-and-pound offense in person, after Atlanta only got the road version. Between the atmosphere CU's own account is already promising for the home crowd and a freshman quarterback who now has a signature drive on his résumé, this is shaping up as a much different homecoming than the finish to last season.