History Says It's No Anomaly, the Buffs Need to Run to Win

Part of Mike MacIntyre's  motivational playbook last week was referring to the Buffs' loss to Hawaii as an "anomaly" while preparing his squad for the game against UMass. Considering that the Buffs went into Hawaii with a 6-18 record and 9 game losing streak under MacIntyre, some might argue that another loss was hardly an anomaly.

Mac's a pretty smart guy, so what's important is to look deeper than just the final score of the Hawaii game. Against the Rainbow Warriors, the Buffs rushed the ball for 215 yards, which was almost 58% of their offense. The Buffs rushing for more yards than they pass for does not happen very much for Colorado. And losing when they do so is very much an anomaly, historically.

For eight years in a row and 11 of the past 12, the Buffs have lived and died primarily as a passing team. Starting with the 2003 season, the Buffs have only had one season (2006) in which they gained more than 50% of their yards on the ground. From 2003 to 2014, the Buffs had a record of 45 wins and 100 losses.

If one starts back in 1982 when Bill McCartney arrived in Boulder, the Buffs since then have had 21 seasons in which they were primarily a passing team, and only 12 in which they were primarily a running team.

In 12 seasons as a running team, the Buffs had winning records in 11 of them.

In fact, the only Buff team since 1982 that ran for more than they passed and also had a losing record was the 2006 team under Dan Hawkins (2-10). That team was truly an anomaly. Take away that team's record from the other 11 running teams and the Buffs as a running team were 93-29-4. Those teams had bowl games every year, were usually ranked in the Top 20, and several times played for the National Championship.

In 21 seasons as a passing team, the Buffs had winning records only six times, and 14 losing seasons. One year they were an even 6-6.

What makes that even worse is that three of those winning seasons for passing teams owe their success to the Buffs dominant running game reputation. In 1992, McCartney's Buffs went 9-1-1. It was the only passing dominant team in Mac's last 10 years as head coach. In 1995 and 1996, the Buffs rode the McCartney built dominant offensive line protecting Koy Detmer (and John Hessler when Koy was injured) to back to back 9-win regular seasons as passing teams under Rick Neuheisel.

Take those three teams out of the equation and the Buffs with a pass heavy attack have only 3 winning teams in 18 years and a record of 69-138-1.

The stats are fairly simple, the Buffs as rushing team over the last 33 years only lose 23% of the time (if you don't count Hawk's anomaly).  And the Buffs as a passing team lost 2 out of every 3 games over 18 years.

MacIntyre said this week that the Buffs will keep on being a running team "until somebody stops us". That is a good thing. But he needs to keep an eye on his offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren to make sure he is not the one "stopping" the Buffs. If the Buffs had kept running the ball in the 2nd half against Hawaii, instead of trying to pass the ball so much, but Buffs would have likely won. In fact, if they had not started off the game trying to pass so much (and very poorly at that) and had instead dominated on the ground from the start, the Buffs would have won handily, probably by several touchdowns.

The Buffs are going to need that running game going forward. CSU is a good team.

There are lots of good teams on Colorado's schedule. Other than Nicholls (the anomaly), most of them are better than CSU. Colorado needs to work on the details of becoming a run dominant team and to be able to do it against good teams.

Running the ball wears down other teams. Sometimes it doesn't show up on the scoreboard until the second half. And those big ole hogs up front would much rather fire off the line and blow holes in the defense than the alternative. It's much more fun. It also eats up the clock and helps deny the other teams' time of possession.

The Buffs need to run the ball and control the clock. The yards and the points will come, and it will keep the Buff defense fresh. They need to look at the past and see what works. If they want to be a bowl caliber team, the Buffs must become and stay primarily a running team.