Colorado overcame some lapses of discipline to beat rival Colorado State 48-20 Saturday at Infinity Park in Glendale, Colo.

The Buffs led 15-8 at halftime, but lost two players just before heading into the training room for intermission. The first was Charlie Barkmeier, who was yellow-carded for an off-the-ruck punch, and the second was Jeff Tarshis, who was ejected for kicking a player on the ground.

“In front of a pretty electric crowd under the lights in the stadium, I think just the emotions got the better of both of those guys,” Colorado coach Jim Snyder said.

But the cards, and perhaps a decent halftime speech, ignited the Buffs to separate from the Rams. Colorado scored almost immediately in the second half with just 13 players on the field.

“I don’t know if that was the trigger, but it spurred the guys to life, and we just started getting go forward,” said Snyder.

“Our forwards were really starting to attack off the base offensively, we had a couple of good breaks out wide, and within the first two minutes of the second half we scored right away and we kind of kept rolling from there.”

Leading Colorado in tries, with two, was flyhalf Tony Quattrini, and making up for the absence of Tarshis, the inside center who was red-carded, was No. 13 Brendan Cox.

“(Quattrini) really directed traffic well all day long,” said Snyder, and our outside center, Brendan Cox, had a great game for us. He was going forward all day long. He started the scoring for us.”

The win makes Colorado 1-0 in the early DI-A goings, and it drops the Rams to 0-1. Next week, Colorado travels to Arizona and Colorado State to Utah.