Cody Hawkins stays at Colorado and shows heart

A tough week for the Hawkins family got a little bit better Saturday.

Only days after Dan Hawkins was fired as Colorado’s head coach, son Cody answered his own skeptics by passing for 266 yards and three touchdowns to lead his father’s former team past Iowa State, 34-14.

There had been speculation that Cody might quit the team if his father was dismissed. Instead, he had one of his best games of the season, signaling to his father after each of the Buffalos’ touchdowns.

“I tried to let him know I was thinking about him,” Cody told reporters afterward.

Dan watched from a balcony above one of the end zones, and he had to like what he saw from his son.

Cody moved to within 23 completions and 331 yards of school career records. He has 643 completions and 7,044 yards, trailing Joel Klatt in both categories. He already owns the career records with 1,163 passes and 55 touchdowns.

The beneficiary was Brian Cabral, a longtime Buffalos assistant who has taken over as interim coach.

In the days leading up to the game, Cody Hawkins seemed insulted by questions about his commitment to the team. His response: “Coach Cabral talks about having a black and gold heart. I believe that inside my chest I have one of those. Regardless of what the situation is … I’m going to compete and be there for my guys.”

Hawkins’ third touchdown pass of the game went to Scotty McKnight, establishing a school record for touchdown connections between a duo with their 13th.

McKnight, who played at Rancho Santa Margarita Tesoro High, has a school record-tying 20 career scoring receptions and an NCAA-best 46-game streak with at least one catch.

Muscling up

Forgive Bucky Badger if he’s a little sore this morning.

Each time Wisconsin scores, the mascot does a pushup for every point the Badgers have in a given game.

His total over the course of Saturday’s game against Indiana: 573. Quite a workout.

Wisconsin scored on all 12 of its possessions, winning 83-20, in its biggest outburst in 95 years.

That’s the most points by a team in a Big Ten Conference game since Ohio State defeated Iowa, 83-21, in 1950.

The last time Wisconsin scored more was 1915, when the Badgers routed Marquette, 85-0.

And to think Wisconsin did it without running back John Clay, last season’s Big Ten offensive player of the year. Clay missed the game with a sprained right knee.

To put the 83 points in context from a different perspective, Wisconsin’s 2009-10 men’s basketball team, which advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament, scored as many as 83 points only three times in 33 games.

Stepping in

In one of his two starts last season in place of an injured quarterback Ricky Dobbs, Navy backup Kriss Proctor rushed for a career-best 89 yards.

On Saturday, in his first start this season, the former Big Bear High star did more than double that, carrying 20 times for 201 yards as the Midshipmen defeated Central Michigan, 38-37.

Not good

Tennessee has never gone a season without a conference win, and it won’t this year, either.

The Volunteers crushed Mississippi, 52-14, in a Southeastern Conference game at Knoxville, a performance by Ole Miss that Rebels Coach Houston Nutt summed up in a word … which he used over and over.

“It was just a bad day,” Nutt said. “A bad feeling, a bad showing. The bottom line is just bad. Just a bad, bad day for the Ole Miss Rebels.”

Old adversaries

Auburn’s 49-31 win over Georgia gives the Tigers a 54-52-8 edge in the Deep South’s oldest college football rivalry....Nebraska and Kansas played for the 105th consecutive year, the nation’s longest continuous series. The series will end next year, though, when Nebraska leaves the Big 12 for the Big Ten. The Cornhuskers went out a winner, 20-3, and have a 91-23-3 advantage in the series, which started in 1982.

mike.hiserman@latimes.com