Adversity is hitting the Colorado football team a bit earlier than it did a year ago.

Following a 28-10 loss at Nebraska on Saturday, the Buffaloes have no time to waste in getting ready for a visit to Fort Collins. CU (1-1) will take on in-state rival Colorado State (1-1) on Saturday (5:30 p.m., CBS) at Canvas Stadium.

In head coach Deion Sanders’ first season at CU a year ago, the Buffs started 3-0 before tasting defeat, but will have to pick themselves off the deck this week to finish non-conference play with a winning record.

“We’re just going to get back to the drawing board and watch the film and understand, you know, what we got to improve on,” quarterback Shedeur Sanders said following the loss to Nebraska. “Understand what we went wrong. Understand that (CSU is) going to try to expose those same things that happened. So we just get back and try to fix those problems that was going on and be ready for the game.”

Two games in, there are plenty of areas that need to improve for the Buffs.

The most glaring issue is the offensive line, which had a rough night in Lincoln. Shedeur Sanders was sacked five times, backup Ryan Staub was sacked once, and the Buffs finished with only 16 rushing yards on 22 carries. The first-team offense had 0 rushing yards on 17 attempts.

Although there are five new starters up front this year, the line looked eerily similar to the group that struggled throughout the 2023 season. As a group, the game at Nebraska was just their second together, but Coach Prime didn’t want to blame that for the struggles.

“I don’t know if it’s that, because that’s the same guys who were out there last week (against North Dakota State),” he said. “I think they just had our number today. Simple as that. Sometimes you gotta just take your hat off and say, ‘Hey, you got me, man, you got it.’ They did that.”While Nebraska did dominate up front, mainly behind a veteran defensive line led by Ty Robinson, Nash Hutmacher and Jimari Butler, the Buffs weren’t dramatically better a week earlier. Against NDSU, Shedeur was sacked just once, but he was hit several times and the Buffs rushed for only 59 yards.

Defensively, the Buffs have been lights out in the second half, allowing a total of six points and 328 yards after intermission. However, they’ve allowed 41 points and 455 yards in the first halves of the two games and CU trailed at halftime both times.

“It seems like we’re a team of (the) second half defensively,” Coach Prime said. “We’ve just got to get it going earlier.”

Special teams also had a rough game against the Cornhuskers, including a blocked field goal and a shanked punt. And, the Buffs racked up nine penalties for 104 yards.

“We can’t do stupid stuff. We got to stop the foolishness,” said Coach Prime, whose team was the second-most penalized team in the country a year ago.

Slow starts have plagued the Buffs so far, as well. CU trailed three different times in the first half against NDSU and fell behind 28-0 at the half at Nebraska.

Safety Cam’Ron Silmon-Craig called the Nebraska game “a very good learning experience.”

While humbled in Lincoln, the Buffs are also hoping to take some momentum from the second half when they outscored the Huskers 10-0.

“We had every reason to shut it down, and we came out with a different mentality (in the second half),” Silmon-Craig said. “We’ve got something to grow off of, and I’m proud of that.”

A year ago, the Buffs were riding high until a 42-6 loss at Oregon. CU responded by going 1-7 in its eight games after that and didn’t play particularly well in the one win.

Coach Prime is hoping for a better response to adversity this year.

“Everybody in this room is dealing with some type of adversity, and our young men are as well,” he said. “So I want to see how we all respond to adversity. That’s what illuminates us, that’s what elevates us, that’s what progresses us to the next level, how we deal with adver- sity.

“Everybody’s got a piece of adversity they’re dealing with right now, and those young men just dealt with it in front of millions of people. So we got to see how they handle it.”