BOULDER — Colorado’s reward for an impressive performance against the Big 12’s best rushing offense is a matchup against the conference’s second-best rushing attack.

The Buffaloes wouldn’t have it any other way.

“If it was me, I would do the same thing if I was a head coach at another school. I would want to run the ball, too,” defensive tackle Chidozie Nwankwo said. “We’re definitely getting stronger each and every week, just seeing different blocking schemes and stuff like that, it’s getting us better.”

On paper, the 177 rushing yards allowed by the Buffs in the road win over Central Florida two weeks ago isn’t stellar. But it’s the fact that that number was nearly 200 yards lower than the Knights’ nation-leading average coming into that game that stands out.

“It comes with the preparation throughout the week,” defensive end Taje McCoy said. “We harped on that all week and we just continued to practice it. I think we executed that well.”

UCF still has the Big 12’s top rushing attack and now Kansas State and its second-ranked run game will come to Folsom Field this weekend.

It will be the third straight game CU will go against a run-heavy offense with a quarterback that is heavily involved in the run as well. The game plan will look similar.

“It’s just gonna come down to alignment, assignment and technique,” Nwankwo said. “That’s really all (there) is to it.”

But while the Buffs are more than used to playing against mobile quarterbacks just a few weeks into the season, K-State and Avery Johnson will be a slightly different challenge than the one that UCF’s KJ Jefferson posed.

“No question, it helps,” defensive ends coach Vincent Dancy said of the previous games against running quarterbacks. “It changes how we rush the QB. I think (Johnson) is very, very mobile. He’s elusive. Totally different from (who) we played last week. (Jefferson) was more of a power back, but (Johnson), if he gets outside, he can do damage. We’ve gotta be very, very disciplined, trust our rush lanes, trust the guy that’s next to us and execute the assignment.”

While the Buffs’ surface-level stats against the run aren’t in any way jaw-dropping, the analytics and sites like Pro Football Focus love how CU has defended the run this season.

In Samuel Okunlola, B.J. Green and Arden Walker, the Buffs have three of the top 10 graded edge rushers in the Big 12. The unit as a whole has an outstanding run defense grade above 90.

It’s the depth pieces like Walker and McCoy that showed up last time out with regular started Dayon Hayes out with an injury that show just how far the CU defense has come in a short amount of time.

“It helps us out extremely,” Dancy said. “I don’t consider (Walker and McCoy) backups because they easily could be playing with the (starters). It just helps us out overall as a unit. Yeah, we’re defensive ends, but we rush as one. Everything we do up front is predicated (on) helping each other. That’s how we play fast and that’s how we execute and make plays in the backfield.”