Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter power Colorado to a 31-26 win over North Dakota State

Colorado’s stars led the Buffaloes to a win over North Dakota State to open the season on Thursday night.

The Buffaloes beat the FCS powerhouse Bison 31-26 as QB Shedeur Sanders threw for 445 yards while CB/WR Travis Hunter played nearly the entire game again and had seven catches for 132 yards and three touchdowns.

Hunter’s final two touchdowns of the game were the deciding scores. He caught a 13-yard TD from Sanders halfway through the third quarter to give the Buffs a 24-20 lead. And then he made an incredible catch midway through the fourth quarter to put Colorado up by two scores.

Hunter is perhaps the most dynamic player in college football. No one plays on both sides of the ball like he does and no one depends on Hunter to do so much like Colorado does. The former five-star recruit is so good at both positions that he could be a first-round pick if he just played with one unit.

After North Dakota State’s Cam Miller cut Colorado’s lead to five with 2:19 to go, the Buffaloes needed to get a first down to end the game. They almost didn’t, but North Dakota State committed a pass interference penalty on third down that effectively ended the game.

Or should have, anyway. Colorado inexplicably threw the ball on the next play even though NDSU had just one timeout remaining. The pass fell incomplete, and it meant the Bison got the ball back with less than 40 seconds to go for a last-ditch drive that ended with a Hail Mary pass that was caught just five yards from the end zone.