Despite blowout, Buffaloes confident they'll salvage season By Curt McKeever Lincoln Joumal-Star The mood in Colorado's locker room following the Buffaloes' 52-7 loss to Nebraska Saturday was remarkably up-beat considering it was their first defeat in 26 Big Eight Conference games. "If we would've lost 24-21, or something, then I could see everybody just being totally down," outside linebacker Chad Brown said. "You know, we got our asses kicked. It's like, 'We got our asses kicked, let's move on.' It's not like, 'Oh, if we would've done this or if we'd have done that.' We just got worked." Essentially, Colorado now faces a similar situation that Nebraska experienced two years ago, when the Cornhuskers focused on the Colorado game only to lose 27-12. In the aftermath of that 1990 loss - Nebraska's first of the season - the Cornhuskers proceeded to drop two of their remaining three games. Saturday's defeat left the Buffaloes at 6-1-1 and likely knocked them out the Big Eight Conference championship and the Orange Bowl berth that goes with it. Colorado hasn't been in that position for the last three seasons, and Brown said he believes that he and his teammates face a big challenge to pick up the pieces from a totally unexpected blowout. "We did put a lot of emphasis on this game, but this game isn't our season," he said. "We still have three more games left and we have a bowl game. "We haven't had a loss like this around here in quite awhile, so I can't exactly say how we will bounce back, but we'll be back." On Saturday, however, the Buffaloes couldn't bounce back from six turnovers. The only time they threatened to make things interesting followed their only scoring drive of the game to make it 17-7 in the second quarter. After stopping the Nebraska offense, CU took over at its 44-yard line with 1:49 left in the half, but on the first play, quarterback Koy Detmer fumbled after being sacked by outside linebacker Travis Hill, who recovered the ball at the 27. Six plays later, Calvin Jones scored his third touchdown and the Cornhuskers led 24-7 with one second left in the half. "We were giving them like one play each series," Brown said, "and then something happened and something happened." Nothing, however, happened for Colorado offensively in the second half. The Buffs managed just 32 yards, and eventually, the CU defense crumbled under that kind of pressure. "Our offense usually does a lot better in the second half," Brown said. "We were hoping that they could get rolling, maintain the ball or something. It just didn't work out." Colorado's defense spent nearly 43 minutes total and all but 6:29 of the final 30 minutes on the field. Nebraska's defensive backs made right reads. Page 5E McCartney says Detmer wasn't totally to blame. Page 10E Those aren't the kind of numbers that lead to a competitive rivalry, something the Buffaloes have made of their recent games against Nebraska. Saturday, however, Brown said he thought the Cornhuskers had more important things to think about than a budding rivalry. "They just wanted to beat us. Once the game started, it had nothing to do with 1 rivalry," he said. "It was a big game for both of us and they wanted to beat us."