Even the best teams have the occasional bad game, and the mark of a truly elite team is in how it responds to that adversity — how it bounces back and if it can find a way to win against all odds.

In the second half of last week’s game, No. 9 Stanford (7-1, 6-0 Pac-12) did indeed show an ability to bounce back, even in the face of a hostile road environment and a rainstorm that dampened not just the team’s spirits, but also the passing game. Now, faced with a different set of challenges at Colorado (4-5, 1-4), the Cardinal will have another chance to prove their mettle and settle back into a groove against a porous Buffaloes defense.

For many of the Cardinal, the first half of last week’s escape at Washington State served as an ugly reminder of the offensive futility that doomed the team in its Week 1 loss at Northwestern.

“Every great team has a game like that,” said sophomore running back Christian McCaffrey. “I think we went back to that Northwestern game and looked back to where we came from and said, ‘This is not going to be us.’ We remembered what that felt like and knew that we had to come together rather than start to deplete.”

Given the parallels between the offensive inadequacies in the Northwestern and Washington State games, it has to be a promising sign for Stanford that a reprisal of its offensive struggles yielded a better result for the team this time around — perhaps because it already had the experience of the Northwestern loss under its belt and a new mindset in the wake of that defeat.

So while a loss is never a good thing, there’s a lot to be said about many of the Cardinal speaking to that Northwestern game as a spark that helped save Stanford’s bacon last weekend in Pullman.

“We’re still not perfect, but that [Northwestern] game has been a rallying cry to a certain degree because we didn’t play our best football,” Shaw said. “I also am a firm believer in you are where you are because of where you come from.”

“You never want to lose, but right now, the morale of our team is stronger because of that game,” McCaffrey added. “It’s allowed us to do a lot of different things and allowed us to look ourselves in the mirror and realize who we are and what we have to do to win games.”

This weekend in Boulder, there won’t be rain. Nor will there be a historically prolific pass offense on the other sideline that can cut into leads in the blink of an eye.

That’s not to say that Stanford’s game against Colorado won’t present its own challenges, though. For one, the game will kick off at 10 a.m. Pacific time — Stanford’s only loss so far came on a 9 a.m. kickoff earlier this season — and playing at altitude will no doubt pose additional challenges for players’ stamina as well.

And on the other sideline, the Cardinal will be met by a tenacious Buffaloes team that has had its fair share of success against big-time opponents this season but just hasn’t been able to get over the cusp and finish those games off.

“They just play really, really hard,” Shaw said. “They play the way you want your team to play — whatever mistakes you make, they’re going to capitalize. You watch them play against UCLA, you watch them play against Arizona, they’re very aggressive defensively.

“They play really well, and teams that go in there and aren’t ready end up behind. We’ve got to go in there with a great mindset and play a better football game this week than we did last week.”

Although the Buffaloes sit in last place in the Pac-12 South again, causing many to write them off, make no mistake: The gap between Colorado and many of the “good” teams of the Pac-12 is a lot smaller than many think.

For instance, the Buffaloes were tied with Oregon at the half and played tough with the Ducks before a late surge. Meanwhile, Colorado led both Arizona and UCLA late in the second half but was unable to finish off both of those opponents.

Colorado also enters this matchup with a lot of momentum in tow, particularly on the offensive side of the ball: In their loss to UCLA, the Buffaloes ran a ludicrous 114 plays and held the ball for 41 minutes, constantly keeping the chains moving and getting big stops on defense. It was only red-zone inadequacy and a late turnover that stopped the Buffaloes from actually being able to pull off the upset at the Rose Bowl.

That being said, Stanford has reason to believe that Colorado won’t be able to put up such numbers against the Cardinal due to the ball-control nature of Stanford’s offensive philosophy and the Cardinal’s experience against hurry-up offenses.

“If they have the ball that long, run that many plays, we’re not doing our part,” Shaw said. “The games that we’ve played well, [opponents] don’t run a lot of plays; the games where we don’t play well, they do run a lot of plays. The structure of our offense, if we’re able to keep the ball, control the clock, get first downs and then touchdowns, then we can minimize that.”

For the Buffaloes, it all starts with quarterback Sefo Liufau, who has put up another consistent passing season in his third year under center for Colorado with 2,199 passing yards to date to go with 9 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. Although the control and decision-making struggles have been there throughout his entire career, Liufau has proven to be reliable at moving the chains.

And no conversation about Colorado’s offense would be complete without bringing up senior wide receiver Nelson Spruce, who ranks fifth in the conference with 653 receiving yards on the season. Although Spruce’s productivity has slowed from his breakout junior season, he remains one of the most well-rounded receiving threats in the conference that should present the biggest matchup challenge for the Cardinal’s young secondary this weekend.

“The challenge is the same as every week — learning their tendencies and learning what they like to do and take away their base offense and try to limit what they do really well,” said freshman nickelback Quenton Meeks. “Nelson is a great possession receiver, knows what he’s doing, great route-runner. All of their receivers are really great route-runners, as we’ve seen so far.”

On the other side of the ball, although Colorado’s secondary has been surprisingly adept at forcing turnovers this year (the Buffaloes are fourth in the conference with 10 interceptions on the season), Colorado’s abysmal run defense, which ranks 11th in the conference by allowing 5.08 yards per rush, will likely mean that Stanford will be reluctant to throw the ball in order to get McCaffrey and the offensive line back into a rhythm.

Although the Cougars were able to take away McCaffrey’s rushing capabilities last week by loading the box behind a surprisingly physical defensive line, the Buffaloes won’t be able to rely on the weather to help shut down Stanford’s passing game like Washington State did last week when it sold out against the run.

And while the Colorado road trip only happens once every three or four years, a return to Boulder will likely be a welcome trip for two of Stanford’s biggest contributors on offense: McCaffrey is from the Denver area, while fifth-year senior quarterback Kevin Hogan first took over the reins of the Stanford offense at Folsom Field three seasons ago.

Stanford will get its chance to bounce back in a favorable matchup against Colorado starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday at Folsom Field in Boulder. The game will be carried on the Pac-12 Networks.

Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu.