BOULDER — There’s been a trend for Colorado the last three weeks.

The Buffaloes win the coin toss (like they’ve done in every game this season), defer to the second half, send the defense out first and within a few minutes, they’re down 7-0.

For as much as the slow starts on offense have puzzled and angered coach Deion Sanders, the CU defense hasn’t held up its end of the bargain, either.

“We’ve just gotta come out being relentless, getting to the ball, everybody communicating,” linebacker LaVonta Bentley said. “That’s a big role of playing defense. If everybody’s on the same page and everybody do they job, they ain’t going to have nowhere to go.”

It was a sudden change after the Buffs were able to get off the field on the opening drives against TCU, Nebraska and Colorado State.

The CU coaching staff seems to have a good grasp of what they did well in the first three weeks and the solution to finding that early success again on defense may be a little more simplistic than one might think.

“I think it was some of our staple plays that we ran,” linebackers coach Andre’ Hart said. “When adding new things, you always have to communicate and make sure you’re on the same page. It was just some of the staple things that we do. Once you go into each game, you want to be unique to that system and make sure you are attacking what another offense does well and make them do something different.”

On the whole, this past week’s 27-24 win over Arizona State featured one of the Buffs’ best defensive performances of the season.

CU prevented a touchdown on six straight drives from the later stages of the second quarter all the way until the final minute of the game.

The Buffs entered the game with one of the nation’s worst run defenses in the country and held the Sun Devils to just 57 yards on the ground, by the far fewest allowed by CU this season.

“I think we flew to the ball a lot better,” Hart said. “There was a lot more communication. We wanted to take one thing away and that was the run… which is a great building step for us and keep building confidence in our front seven.”

It helped that the linebacker play was as good as it’s been all year.

Hart continued to change up the starting lineup as he has often this season. Bentley and Marvin Ham were the starters in Week 1 before Juwan Mitchell took Bentley’s spot the last four games, while Jeremiah Brown has also started in place of Ham once.

“I like to keep ‘em up at night,” Hart said with a laugh. “I don’t want ‘em sleeping easy. I don’t want ‘em thinking they got it made because life is not like that. We build competition every single week, every single day. All these guys have dreams of going to the NFL. A lot of them came here from the portal and we’re going to give them the opportunity to play because what you don’t want to do is cause cancer, but you do want to cause competition. That’s what we do every day in our room.”

This past week in the desert, it was Bentley and Florida State transfer Brendan Gant, who recently returned to practice after working his way back from injury, who were out there first.

Both Bentley and Gant warranted their increased playing time as Bentley led the way with 11 tackles, a sack and another tackle for loss, while Gant had three tackles and provided a calming presence.

“(Gant) came in and he was playing a really good game and we were having success so there was no reason to really make a change,” Hart said. “I think the best thing is those (other) guys didn’t see it as a slap in the face. They actually came around, they were talking to each other, talking about the game plan, making sure we were still sharp. That’s what I love the most. Next week could be your week. Don’t get down because you’re not playing.”

This week, as the Buffs prepare for a Stanford team that will certainly test an improved run defense, it looks like speedy Alabama transfer Demouy Kennedy is in line to make his first start.

“He should be getting in this week, as long as he keeps continuing to progress like he has been,” Hart said. “Of course, he had his leg injury and he was coming back and we were trying to be careful with that a little bit. But now he’s up to full speed, he’s running, he’s been on special teams. Now we think it’s time to give him a shot to play in the actual game.”

After a rough start to the season, this CU defense is starting to change the perception many have had since Week 1.

“In a minute, people are going to change up how they attack us and that’s what we want. We want them to react to us, not us reacting to them,” Hart said.