Colorado has another two-way player on its football team.

Offensive lineman Tyler Brown has been practicing with the defensive linemen and is wearing a special blue jersey to signify he’s playing both sides of the ball.

“Break it down on Roc; we’ve got another two-way player,” CU head coach Deion Sanders said to the team at the start of practice on Wednesday.

The 21st-ranked Buffs (6-2, 4-1 Big 12), who visit Texas Tech on Saturday (2 p.m., Fox), have the best two-way player in the country in Travis Hunter. Like Hunter, Isaiah Hardge has also played cornerback and receiver this season. Now, Brown is in that club.

It’s been a unique season for Brown, a 6-foot-3, 310-pound senior who has played offensive line throughout his collegiate career, at Louisiana, Jackson State and CU.

Brown began the season as CU’s starter at right tackle for the first two games. In Week 3, he moved to left guard and made five consecutive starts there. He played all but three offensive snaps in the first six games combined.

The past two games, however, CU has rotated its guards, with Brown playing just 41.6% of the snaps. In the Buffs’ last game, Oct. 26 against Cincinnati, he came off the bench for the first time this season.

With his playing time on offense reduced and CU suffering some injuries on the defensive line, Brown is now taking on a new task.

“I tell you what, the guy is strong,” CU linebackers coach Andre Hart said. “He’s one of the strongest guys we have, so to have him in there plugging gaps and can’t be moved, we love that as linebackers. That helps us out a lot.

“He always goes about his work in a professional way, and I think it gets back into that tribe mentality that I talked about with the coaches. It’s that way with the players, too. No job is too big, too small and how he’s doing in practice, I’d love to keep him over. I don’t know if we can or not, but I’d sure fight for it.”

Tackle Phillip Houston, who has played a lot of snaps with Brown on offense, said he’s seen a new mentality in Brown the past couple of weeks.

“I’ve honestly seen like, a little switch flipping of just like a little bit more hunger; like, of just running through people,” Houston said. “I’d say he’s the strongest dude on the team so like, when you’re on the other side, it’s like, ‘I gotta go against the strongest man now.’”

CU began the season with seven scholarship defensive tackles, but Taurean Carter suffered a season-ending injury in Week 2 and Rayyan Buell has missed the past three games with an injury. Starter Shane Cokes was injured in the Buffs’ last game, and Coach Prime said Tuesday he’s not sure if Cokes will play this week.

Starter Chidozie Nwankwo, as well as Amari McNeill, Anquin Barnes and Tawfiq Thomas, have played well, but adding Brown to the mix gives them more depth.

At guard, the Buffs have Justin Mayers, Kahlil Benson and Kareem Harden who have all logged a lot of playing time, in addition to Brown.

Road success

The first time CU went on the road this year, it didn’t go well, with a 28-10 loss at Nebraska. Since then, the Buffs have been beasts away from Boulder.

The Buffs have won three in a row on the road, and they’ve done it in dominating fashion with scores of 28-9 at Colorado State, 48-21 at Central Florida and 34-7 at Arizona.

“The way we prepare on the road, the way we kind of concentrate from the time we wake up and go to practice before we leave,” Coach Prime said of the road success. “The things that we know we can accomplish, the unity, the focus and the walk-throughs, the overall understanding of being early, not on time, and when you get there, don’t even think about bringing a phone in the meeting room. Just the undaunting focus that we have, man.

“I think that’s a lot. It says a lot to the structure in what our coaches are expecting from the young men and what they’re delivering. They get it.”

This is the first time CU has won three in a row on the road in one season since 1996. In the past 20 seasons (2005-24), the Buffs won as many as three road games just one other time, going 3-2 in 2016.

Notable

Texas Tech announced two months ago that Saturday’s game at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas, is sold out. It will be the eighth consecutive game that CU has played in a sold-out stadium. That’s the second-longest streak in CU history, behind a 10-game streak in 2023. … Coming off a 23-22 win at then-No. 10 Iowa State, Tech is looking to beat a ranked opponent in consecutive weeks for the first time since 2012.