Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter help Colorado beat Cincinnati 34-23 to become bowl eligible

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Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter help Colorado beat Cincinnati 34-23 to become bowl eligible

2024-10-27 20:49 Last Updated At：21:00

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — Shedeur Sanders threw a pair of touchdown passes to Travis Hunter and ran for a score to help Colorado become bowl-eligible with a 34-23 win over Cincinnati on Saturday night.

Sanders put on quite an efficient aerial show, completing 25 of 30 passes for 323 yards. He completed his first 15 passes, which was the most to start a game in program history. Not bad considering he's getting over the flu.

Hunter had nine catches for 153 yards, including a 34-yard TD grab with three seconds left before halftime. On defense, the two-way star and Heisman hopeful broke up four passes.

“Travis is the best football player in the country,” Colorado coach Deion Sanders said. “We all know that. Why are we even deliberating over that?”

The Buffaloes (6-2, 4-1 Big 12) are eligible for a bowl game over a full season for the first time since 2016. They also went to a bowl game in 2020 during the COVID-shortened year. It's been quite a turnaround for Colorado in Year 2 under Sanders. The team finished 4-8 a year ago after a fast start.

“We’re on a wonderful journey,” the Buffaloes coach said. “We know the direction we’re going."

The first call Sanders made after the win was to Peggy Coppom, the Buffaloes super-fan who turns 100 next month. She's been a rallying point for Sanders — to get her to a bowl game.

“Now we want to make sure she goes to the best possible bowl that she could possibly go to,” Sanders said.

Colorado took a 31-14 lead with 5:41 left in the third quarter on a 7-yard run by Isaiah Augustave. Shedeur Sanders, though, appeared to be walking gingerly along the sideline shortly after the drive. He spent time on the stationary bike when the defense was on the field.

The Bearcats (5-3, 3-2) trimmed the deficit to 31-23 with 3:51 remaining when Brendan Sorsby connected with tight end Joe Royer for a 6-yard TD. They tried for two points and couldn't convert.

Pinned deep after the kickoff, Sanders went for broke and completed a 34-yard pass to Hunter. The drive led to Alejandro Mata's game-sealing 47-yard field goal with 1:39 remaining.

“Each win,” Shedeur Sanders said, “definitely gives us a confidence boost.”

Now, the Buffaloes could be looking at an appearance in the polls. Deion Sanders would rather not see that happen.

“Don't rank us, please,” Sanders said. “We don't like that. We'd rather be in the back in the dark, just chillin'.”

Sorsby finished with 180 yards passing and two touchdowns.

“I don’t think any guy on the sideline ever lost hope,” Sorsby said. “That's a credit to this team and this staff.”

The game changed complexion just before halftime when Colorado's defense stuffed Sorsby on fourth-and-1 at the 46 with 33 seconds left. It led to Sanders finding a wide-open Hunter to give Colorado a 24-14 lead at the break.

“That momentum swing right before halftime was huge, obviously, in their favor,” Bearcats coach Scott Satterfield said. “Just obviously disappointed in the loss, not playing great.”

The Buffaloes committed three unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, including one on safety Shilo Sanders in the fourth quarter that briefly landed him on the bench. There was another on Jimmy Horn Jr. early in the game. He hauled in a pass from Sanders and raced 57 yards for what would’ve been a first-quarter touchdown, but as he passed by a Cincinnati defensive back he flashed a “peace” sign. It drew a flag and negated the score.

Hunter bailed out his fellow receiver with a 3-yard TD catch.

At one point, Deion Sanders implored the fans over the public address system to not throw anything on the field. He reiterated that point after the game.

“The people doing that, you're better than that,” Sanders said.

Cincinnati: The Bearcats defense struggled to get consistent pressure on Sanders and sacked him just once.

Colorado: The Buffaloes looked snazzy wearing their all-gray uniforms with white helmets. They found some traction on the ground, too, rushing for 123 yards.

Cincinnati: A week break before hosting West Virginia on Nov. 9.

Colorado: The Buffaloes will have a second bye week before playing at Texas Tech on Nov. 9.

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Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 22, officials say, while truck ramming near Tel Aviv hurts dozens

2024-10-27 20:57 Last Updated At：21:00

RAMAT HASHARON, Israel (AP) — Israeli strikes on northern Gaza have killed at least 22 people, mostly women and children, Palestinian officials said Sunday, as the Israeli offensive in the hard-hit and isolated north entered a third week and aid groups described a humanitarian catastrophe. Israel said it targeted militants.

In a separate development, a truck rammed into a bus stop near the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, wounding 35 people, according to first responders. Israeli police described it as an attack and said the assailant was an Arab citizen of Israel. The ramming occurred near the headquarters of Israel's Mossad spy agency.

Iran's supreme leader, meanwhile, said Israeli strikes on the country over the weekend “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” while stopping short of calling for retaliation, suggesting Iran is carefully weighing its response to the attack.

On Saturday, Israeli warplanes attacked military targets in Iran in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack earlier this month.

The exchange of fire has raised fears of an all-out regional war pitting Israel and the United States against Iran and its militant proxies, which include Hamas and the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, where Israel launched a ground invasion earlier this month after nearly a year of lower-level conflict.

The Israeli military said Sunday that four soldiers, including a military rabbi, were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon, without providing details about the circumstances. It said five other personnel were severely wounded. An explosive drone and a projectile fired from Lebanon wounded five people in Israel on Sunday, authorites said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the strikes “severely harmed” Iran and achieved all of Israel’s goals.

“The air force struck throughout Iran. We severely harmed Iran’s defense capabilities and its ability to produce missiles that are aimed toward us,” Netanyahu said in his first public comments on the strikes.

Satellite images showed damage to two secretive Iranian military bases, one linked to work on nuclear weapons that Western intelligence agencies and nuclear inspectors say was discontinued in 2003 and another linked to Iran's ballistic missile program.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s 85-year-old supreme leader, said “it is up to the authorities to determine how to convey the power and will of the Iranian people to the Israeli regime and to take actions that serve the interests of this nation and country.”

Khamenei would make any final decision on how Iran responds.

Later Sunday, protesters disrupted a speech by Netanyahu at a nationally broadcast ceremony remembering the victims of Hamas’ attack on southern Israel last year. People shouted “Shame on you” and made a commotion, forcing Netanyahu to stop his speech. Many Israelis blame Netanyahu for the failures that led to the’ attack and hold him responsible for not yet bringing home remaining hostages.

In the city of Ramat Hasharon, northeast of Tel Aviv, the truck slammed into a bus at a stop as Israelis were returning to work after a weeklong holiday, leaving some people stuck under the vehicles. In addition to being near the Mossad headquarters and a military base, the bus stop is also close to a central highway junction.

Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said six of the wounded were in serious condition.

Asi Aharoni, an Israeli police spokesperson, told reporters that the attacker had been “neutralized,” without saying if the assailant was dead.

Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group praised the suspected attack but did not claim it.

Palestinians have carried out scores of stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks over the years. Tensions have soared since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, as Israel has carried out regular military raids into the occupied West Bank that have left hundreds dead. Most appear to have been militants killed during shootouts with Israeli forces, but Palestinians taking part in violent protests and civilian bystanders have also been killed.

The military said there was another attack near a checkpoint in the West Bank, in which a suspect tried to ram soldiers with his vehicle and then tried to stab them before being killed. No soldiers were wounded, it said.

The Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service said that 11 women and two children were among the 22 killed in the strikes late Saturday on several homes and buildings in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. It said a further 15 people were wounded and that the death toll could rise. It listed the names of those killed, who mostly came from three families.

The Israeli military said it carried out a precise strike on militants in a structure in Beit Lahiya and took steps to avoid harming civilians. It disputed what it said were “numbers published by the media,” without elaborating or providing evidence for its own account.

Israel has been waging a massive air and ground offensive in northern Gaza since Oct. 6, saying that Hamas militants have regrouped there. Hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled to Gaza City in the latest wave of displacement in the yearlong war.

Aid groups have warned of a catastrophic situation in northern Gaza, which was the first target of Israel's ground offensive and had already suffered the heaviest destruction of the war. Israel has severely limited the entry of basic humanitarian aid in recent weeks, and the three remaining hospitals in the north — one of which was raided over the weekend — say they have been overwhelmed by waves of wounded people.

The International Committee of the Red Cross on Saturday said that ongoing Israeli evacuation orders and restrictions on the entry of essential supplies to the north had left the civilian population in “horrific circumstances.”

“Many civilians are currently unable to move, trapped by fighting, destruction or physical constraint and now lack access to even basic medical care,” it said.

The war began when Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel's border wall and stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023. They killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, around a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to the local Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count but says more than half of those killed were women and children. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The offensive has devastated much of the impoverished coastal territory and displaced around 90% of its population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands of people have crowded into squalid tent camps along the coast, and aid groups say hunger is rampant.

Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel, Magdy from Cairo and Krauss from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press reporters Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war