Rest In Peace Rashaan Salaam 1974-2016

• Rashaan Salaam -- October 8, 1974 - December 5, 2016

• 1994 Heisman Trophy Winner & Consensus All-American
• 4th Player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season
• Rushed for 3,057 yards on 486 carries for his Colorado career (6.29 yards per carry)
• 1st Round NFL draft pick (1995)
• NFC Rookie of the Year (Chicago Bears)
• Youngest player in NFL history to rush for 1000 yards in a season

Colorado's Offensive Shortcomings Exposed in 41-10 Loss to Washington in Pac-12 Championship Game

Once again, a top-notch defensive coordinator exposed the weaknesses of Colorado's offensive play caller, Brian Lindgren. The Huskies also exposed that Colorado's head coach Mike MacIntyre and the QB coach (Lindgren) sort of melt down emotionally and intellectually when Sefo Liufau gets injured.

The Colorado Buffaloes are a good football team. That is a good thing for long-suffering CU fans and students. The foundation and culture has been built for the Buffs to remain a Top 25 team for years to come.

The key to this foundation of Top 10 play is that the Buffs have one of the best defensive coordinators in all of college football in Jim Leavitt. They also have an excellent defensive staff in Joe Tumpkin, Charles Clark, and Jim Jeffcoat. Make no mistake about it, the outstanding D is the reason the Buffs won 10 games this year.

The great parts of being a Top 25 program are numerous. Lots of positive press and interest from top tier recruits combine with school and civic pride to make football fun and exciting for fans and players alike.  Watch some of the videos from this year of jubilant students celebrating with their football playing classmates. The times have changed in Boulder.

The hard part of being a Top 25 team is that expectations are raised exponentially. Nobody is interested in the Buffs "playing a good game" and still coming up short.  The Buffs had a decade of losing which led to fans grasping for any positive signs. After 10 wins this year, that's over. 

Fans know that the Buffs will be playing excellent teams and that they probably will not win them all. They play in the Conference of Champions, and year in and year out they can expect that around half the teams in the Pac-12 will be Top 25 teams. And if they make it to the conference championship, they will likely be playing a Top 5 team. 

It's tough sledding, but that's how competitive it is in the Power 5 conferences. Colorado needs to get used to that.

Every decent head coach and coordinator in football from high school on knows that you have to have a plan for each game. Every good coach knows that it should be a good plan. What makes a truly great coach is not only excellent planning, but also the ability to adapt to unexpected circumstances during the game.

The head coach needs to be on top it, for sure, but the coordinators are the ones who have to make the plans and then adjust during the game. It's their job.

Leavitt is excellent in all facets. He knew that Heisman candidate Jake Browning (he of the 65% completion percentage, 42 TD passes and only 7 interceptions) could dominate the game like he had against most of their opponents this year. Leavitt gambled that if the Buffs shut down Browning, the would be able to stay in the game. In fact, if someone was unable to watch the game and only read that the Buffs had held Browning to only 9 completions in 24 attempts, they would have likely assumed that the Buffs dominated the game.

Unfortunately for Leavitt and the Buffs, the offense did not seem to have a backup plan after it became clear that what they hoped for was not going to pan out. It's been a pattern against the better defenses all year. Another pattern is that the offensive play-caller tends to freeze up if Sefo Liufau goes down to injury.

What makes that strange is that when Steven Montez was expected to start a game this season, Lindgren seemed comfortable designing a call scheme for him. It worked against Oregon and Oregon State just fine.

But in the games against Michigan and Washington, it seemed as if Liufau's injured ankle has some sort of psychic connection to Lindgren's brain. Sprained ankle for one led to sprained brain for his coach.

Sefo Liufau injured his ankle in the first quarter in the game against Washington. It was a tough defensive battle with Washington holding a tenuous 14-7 lead at halftime. Montez had made some good throws and his team was ready to face adversity and follow him the rest of the game.

 After watching Liufau struggle to walk on the sidelines and being led off to the locker room, every Buff fan felt bad for the young man. But they also hoped their team would overcome adversity and play strong in the second half.

Some of us watching the game on TV knew it was a bad omen when the sideline reporter quoted MacIntyre as saying "We need to get Sefo Liufau back in this game" instead of stating that Buffs needed to adjust and rally behind Montez. He was stating that ONLY Liufau could lead the Buffs to victory. He was wrong.

Despite the lopsided loss, apparently Mac and Lindgren got what they needed because they put an injured Sefo Liufau back in and that decision and typically bad play-calling led to three interceptions. 

The first interception was a pick-six and the Buffs were down 21-7 with 14 seconds gone in the 3rd quarter. A close defensive game quickly became a rout as Liufau was unable to follow through on his throws which caused them to sail high, often into the arms of Washington defenders..

Although Liufau finished the game with only 3 completions in 13 attempts (and 3 interceptions), neither MacIntyre nor Lindgren could fathom the idea of taking Liufau out of the game to rest his sprained ankle. No, apparently the idea of taking him out would be admitting they screwed up. 

What Mac and Lindgren need to realize is that whether they admit it or not, they screwed up and screwed their team.

Some simple stats --

While Montez was in the game, the Buffs and Huskies each scored 7 points.

With Sefo Luifau in the lineup at quarterback, the Huskies outscored the Buffs 34-3.

Draw you own conclusions.

When MacIntyre and Lindgren opted to put an injured QB back in to start the 3rd quarter, they risked an entire season's worth of hard work by 100 guys to protect the legacy of one guy.

It's an old adage that the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, or the one. Unfortunately for the many on the Colorado sidelines (and in the stands and watching on TV) last night, the few who could have made the right choice instead opted for the good of the few (or the one).

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But hey, it was a successful season. Nobody expected 10 wins. Nobody expected the Rose Bowl either, and the Colorado coaches shouldn't expect it now either. If they lost a close defensive game to the #4 team in the country, they could have argued that Colorado deserved the Rose Bowl if Washington was in the Playoffs.  But a 41-10 destruction is another matter. Most folks on the east coast didn't even see the game, they just saw the score this morning and figured the Colorado got beaten across the board

But the truth is that only one of the big three of the Buffs (Leavitt) did the job well. Mac and Lindgren faced adversity and found themselves wanting. Again.

I hear it's lovely in San Antonio.

Remembering My Dad and our First Visit to "The Farm" to see Jim Plunkett -- September 19, 1970

My father Fred and I first stepped foot on "The Farm" (more commonly known as Stanford University) on September 19, 1970 to watch a game between Stanford and San Jose State. 

For years already in my young life, my father had been taking me to Arizona State University football games at Sun Devil Stadium, less than five miles from our home in Scottsdale. Shortly after moving from Arizona to Silicon Valley, my Dad managed to get tickets to see my first college football game in California. He thought was an important game for quite a few reasons.

My father was born and raised in Winslow, Arizona, just south of the largest Indian Reservation in the United States. The Navajo Nation Reservation covers more than 27,000 square miles across a Arizona, New Mexico and into Utah. Also not far from Winslow is the Hopi Nation, whose 6,558 square mile reservation lies within the Navajo Reservation.

My father grew up with Native Americans. The Indians and the Hispanics (my father's background) made up more than half of the population of Winslow. Despite their numbers, neither Hispanics nor the Native Americans (or other minorities like Blacks) were allowed to use the public swimming pool, except for one day per week so that the pool could be drained, cleaned, and refilled before the lighter skinned folks of Winslow used the pool again. Really.

My father also spent his youth working at the family's Hubbell Trading Post on the Navajo Reservation. The trading post's founder Don Lorenzo Hubbell was married to Lina Rubi. To my father, local Native Americans were not only his neighbors, but also his friends, and they made a large impact with how he would live his entire life.

Back in 1970, the nickname of the Stanford athletics teams was the "Indians" -- and the quarterback of their team was a Hispanic/Native American named Jim Plunkett. My Father wanted to see the young man play. It represented a serious change from his youth. He and some of his Hispanic and Indian friends were denied the chance for athletic scholarships to college because of their ethnicity. So, it was Army first, and college afterwards due to the GI Bill.

My father was very excited that one of the best football players in the country was the quarterback for Stanford. And Plunkett was an Indian both in heritage and as a Stanford player. My father was very excited to see the game.

Stanford has opened the season as the #10 team in the country. In their first game, they traveled to #4 Arkansas and beat the Razorbacks 34-28. The Indians jumped in the polls that week all the way to #4 for their game against San Jose State. That day, September 19, 1970, Plunkett led the Indians to a 34-3 manhandling of the Spartans.

Those first two weeks of the 1970 season were just the springboard for Plunkett. After his Consensus All-American season, he won the Heisman Trophy and every other award imaginable on his way to being the #1 overall draft pick in the NFL the following year. My Dad was very proud.

Jim Plunkett was the first player I got to watch in person that would go on to win the Heisman. For that, old and huge Stanford Stadium will always hold a place in my heart. But that place is gone now, having been replaced by a newer, shinier and much smaller version in 2005. Stanford is no longer called the Indians. They gave that up in 1972 because some thought it was degrading. And they are no longer called the Cardinals. That stopped in 1981 because they didn't want folks to think they were birds. They have been the Cardinal (as in the color) since that time, represented by a tree for a mascot. Really.

It would have been so nice for the Buffaloes and the Indians to be on the same field once again. And I wish I could go back in time to see more college football games with my father. C'est la vie. Time goes on.

Go Colorado Buffaloes! 

Update: Final score, Colorado 10-5 over Stanford.

When Yin Meets Yang: Lindgren and Chiaverini Form A Perfect Offensive Union for the Colorado Buffaloes

Brian Lindgren 
The offensive coordinator at the University of Colorado since arriving with head coach Mike MacIntyre from San Jose State before the 2013 season. Although his planning and play-calling have led to numerous records for Buffs QB Sefo Liufau, Colorado's Pac-12 won-loss record from his arrival to this year was a paltry 2-25.

Darrin Chiaverini
Played his college football at the University of Colorado from 1995-98 as a wide receiver before playing professionally for 7 years (NFL and AFL). He has been working his way up the ladder as a college coach since he retired as a player. He has been involved in spectacular turnaround projects numerous times with both offensive and special teams. Prior to this year, his last stop was at Texas Tech, where he coached special teams and outside wide receivers. He was hired as Co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach at Colorado following 2015 season.

Many speculated that the pairing of Lindgren and Chiaverini would not work out. Some opined that Lindgren would not react well to being "demoted" to sharing the coordinator position, and others felt that the personality types were too disparate to effectively lead together. Lindgren is known as a quiet and cerebral type of individual while Chiaverini is known for his fire and passion and toughness, along with his ability to fire up his team. Many wondered about how well they would work together.

It turns out that Lindgren and Chiaverini have formed a perfect example of Yin and Yang, and the combination has led to Colorado's offensive production this year being their highest ever.   If this year's Buffs continue to rack up yards at the same pace for the rest of the season, they will break the record set by Bill McCartney's last team in 1994. That team featured Heisman Trophy winner Rashaan Salaam and Kordell Stewart and a total of NINE players which were drafted into the NFL the following spring.

Through five games, this team has averaged 531.2 yards per game. That's more than 134 yards per game more than last year, and almost 36 yards per game more than the record setting 1994 squad. 

But more importantly than just total yards, the Buffs have been rushing the ball far better in 2016. Their average of 218.6 yards per game is the highest since 2002, when Chris Brown and Bobby Purify helped the Buffs average 251.2 yards per game on the ground.

The improved ground attack has been helped along by a more more dangerous air game for the Buffs. This year Colorado has been averaging 14.6 yards per reception, which is the highest since Koy Detmer led the 1996 Buffs  to 15.1 yards per completion. 

This year, behind Sefo Liufau and Steven Montez, Colorado has averaged 9.77 yards per attempted pass. Last year, the Buffs averaged only 6.71 YPA. You have to go all the way back to the undefeated 1989 regular season to find a Buffs team that averaged more YPA on their passes. That year, Darian Hagan averaged an unworldly 11.8 YPA and almost 21 yards per completion.

What's the moral of this story? Sometimes Yin and Yang combine to form a perfect union. From two conference wins in three years to 2-0 so far this year and first place in the Pac-12 South.


 

Rest in Peace, Dee Dowis: Looking Back to 1989 when the State of Colorado had the Best Rushing QB's in the Country

Sad news today that former Air Force QB Dee Dowis was killed in an auto accident in Georgia. Condolences to his family, friends, and teammates.

Seeing the news about Dowis immediately brought back memories of 1989. Here in Boulder, 1989 was the year that we lost Sal Aunese to stomach cancer. It was also the year that the Buffs came together as a family and put together one of the most dominant regular seasons in CU history. After going undefeated in the regular season, the #1 ranked Buffs lost in their first attempt at a national title.

Down in Colorado Springs at the Air Force Academy, another option QB was also lighting up college football. Cadet Dee Dowis, a whopping 153 pounds dripping wet when he first became the QB for the Falcons, led Air Force to an 8-4-1 record.

For the season, Dowis rushed for 1,286 yards and 18 touchdowns, while also passing for 1,285 yards and 7 touchdowns. Up in Boulder, Hagan rushed for 1,004 yards and 17 touchdowns, and threw for 1,002 yards and 4 touchdowns.


Back in the 80's, a quarterback rushing and passing for more than 1000 yards in a season was extremely rare. In fact, Reggie Collier at Southern Miss was the first player to achieve the benchmarks at the Division 1 level in the 1981 season.

Dowis and Hagan were rewarded for their efforts by being seriously considered for the Heisman Trophy. In the final ballots, Hagan finished 5th and Dowis finished 6th.

For their careers, Dowis rushed for 3,612 yards and passed for 2,870, while Hagan ran for 2,004 and passed for 3,801 yards. 

Both Hagan and Dowis will go down as two of the finest option quarterbacks of all time. And in 1989, the best running quarterbacks in all the land played their football in Colorado.


 

Why the National Championship Dreams of the Oregon Ducks were Smashed and Trashed by Stanford... Again!

This is an update to the post from October 8th, 2013, which offered advice to the Oregon Ducks, head coach Mark Helfrich, and quarterback Marcus Mariota.

Told you so!

Phil Knight must be wondering how much money he has to spend on stupid looking uniforms, fancy rims for the wheeled apparti, gold fixtures, and fur covered sinks in the locker room before his beloved Ducks win a national championship. Maybe the simple fact is that money is NOT going buy Phil and the University of Oregon anything except notoriety.

Maybe when you guys quit spending so much time deciding "what to wear" to your football games and mouthing off about how many points you are going to score, you might start having a realistic chance to beat the top defensive teams in the country. Like Auburn showed several years back, and Stanford has shown each of the last two years, the glitz and glamour of your "Las Vegas" style offense does not stand up very well against superior strength in the trenches.

Your team arrived in Palo Alto to face Stanford with the #2 rating in the polls. You arrived with the #2 offense in the country behind Baylor. You arrived with the #2 rushing attack in the FBS behind Army. And, after rushing for a meagre 62 yards (It's hard to get a lot of yards on the ground when your star running back keeps tripping over his big mouth), you guys left California with the knowledge that your team is clearly #2 in the Pac-12 North. Again. Ouch.

A little history for you. There was a famous ad campaign for Canon in 1990 that featured a young Andre Agassi with the catchphrase that "image is everything" -- which brought a lot of criticism because the young tennis star had yet to win anything major and it seemed to support the idea that looking good was more important than winning.  The commercial starts off with Andre standing on the Las Vegas Strip sporting a rock star mullet. Need we say more?

Right now. The Oregon Ducks are standing on the same Vegas strip wearing a mullet and choking on the notion that image is everything. Like Agassi, the Ducks COULD change their attitude and dedicate themselves to winning it all. Or they can be content to spend lots of money "looking good" on the red carpet while more serious minded programs do what is necessary to win the National Championship.

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The October 8th posting also pointed out that Marcus Mariota needed to work on his skills if he wants to succeed at the next level. He cannot continue to rely on his team being faster and stronger than everyone else as the impetus of his wonderful statistics. In the NFL, every opponent is fast and strong. And they work on every aspect of their games in order to succeed.

One of the guys on the sideline at the game was John Elway. He went to Stanford. John never went to a bowl game while in college. But he did play in FIVE Super Bowls and was named to NINE Pro Bowls. He won two Super Bowls and is now enshrined in the Hall of Fame for both pro football and college.

Marcus needs to decide if he wants to be like John Elway or Tim Tebow. Actually, scratch that. As bad as Tebow was as a NFL quarterback, he DID win two national championships as well as the Heisman Trophy.

Marcus has all the potential in the world, but as Hall of Fame coach Darrell Royal used to say, "potential means you ain't done it yet." Royal coached the Texas Longhorns to THREE national championships, so he certainly "done it."
The question remains about Mariota and the Ducks -- Are they going to follow the Nike creed and "just do it" or are they going to continue to focus on how good they look while trying?

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Update Again:

To add insult to injury following the beatdown by Stanford in Palo Alto, Oregon alum and benefactor extraordinaire Phil Knight was photographed at the LSU-Alabama game wearing Alabama gear on Saturday night. Stuart Mandel, who writes for Sports Illustrated, tweeted "Well this is going to break Oregon's heart. Down on sideline Phil Knight just walked by dressed in Alabama gear." It sounds and looks like the Ducks just got dumped at the prom.

You gotta love it. Phil Knight was looking for a team that would "just do it" and he found it in Alabama.

Colorado Quarteback Sefo Liufau's Fine Ability to Convert on 3rd Downs A Key to the Buffs' Second Half

If 3rd down conversions are the key to an offense's ability to hold onto the ball and keep opposing teams from getting their hands on the pigskin, then Mike MacIntyre's decision to promote Sefo Liufau to starting quarterback may very well be one of the best decisions he has made this year.

If one goes back and looks at the stats to the two games against Oregon State and Oregon, one sees that the Buffs converted only 2 of 15 third downs against the Beavers in Corvallis and converted 0 of 15 against the Ducks. Before Sefo Liufau entered the game in Tempe against Arizona State, the Buffs were 0 for 3 against the Sun Devils. That means that before Liufau entered the game, the CU Buffs had converted only 2 of their prior 33 third downs. It doesn't take a PhD in statistics to know that those kinds of numbers would make it difficult for any team to win.

How did Sefo do when thrust into the spotlight when his team was already trailing by 25 points? All things considered, he did marvellous. Liufau consistently led Colorado down the field. He did throw two interceptions and fumbled a snap, leading to more scores by the ASU, but he was extremely efficient at converting 3rd downs into first downs or better.

How good was he at converting? Seven of 10 (70%) of CU's third down tries with Liufau at the helm ended with either a first down or a touchdown. That not only kept the Sun Devil offense off the field, but also managed to give the Buff defense a rest. Rest for the defense has been in short supply since kickoff at Oregon State.

If Colorado and Liufau can drastically cut turnovers and continue to convert 3rd downs at a high rate, the Buffs could literally turn their season around on a dime. 

The 1989 Buffs ended the regular season undefeated and played for the national championship against Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl. That team dominated almost every team they played that year. For the season, that great team converted 53.9% of their 3rd downs. The 1990 team which won the national championship (also against ND) converted 48.9% of their 3rd downs. The 1994 team which featured Heisman Trophy Winner Rashaan Salaam and a plethora of NFL draft picks converted 43.8% of their 3rd downs.

Make no mistake, the ability to hold onto the ball when facing 3rd down is an extremely important statistic. In the first two games of this year, Colorado converted 40% of their 3rd downs and won both games. In the games where the rate of conversion dropped into the single digits, the Buffs were blown out.

The game against undefeated Charleston Southern this week will give Liufau the chance to lead the Buffs from the opening kick. If they convert at over 50% on third down (and win the turnover battle) the team will walk off Folsom Field with a huge win.

The Buff defense under Kent Baer has been much maligned the last three weeks, but it must be remembered that the Colorado offense did nothing with any consistency during that same time. There were a few big plays, of course, but the Buffs failed miserably to hold onto the ball for any length of time. If Sefo Liufau can help the CU offense control the ball and the clock in the upcoming games, the Colorado defense will almost magically get much better.

Football is a game that is fueled by emotion. Nothing fires up the defense like watching from the sideline as their teammates on offense control the ball and the clock and drive for a touchdown. On the other hand, nothing does more to dishearten a defense than watching their offense go three and out over and over again. Or turning over the ball.

If Colorado can turn those two things around and do it on a weekly basis, they will immediately become competitive once again for the first time in many years.

Lessons From Boulder for Mark Helfrich, Marcus Mariota, and the Oregon Ducks

This is an open letter to Mark Helfrich and the Oregon Ducks.

Dear Mark and your Oregon Ducks,

It was wonderful to see you in Boulder against our Colorado Buffaloes this past Saturday. Half of the teams that play each Saturday have one thing in common, a loss. Most Buff fans knew going in that the chance of a Buff victory was small. We all knew, however, that we would get to see one of the very best teams in the nation play here in Boulder. That was a thrill. It gives us something to aspire to.

Your team, especially quarterback Marcus Mariota, lived up to the wonderful billing. Your team speed is phenomenal. Your Ducks truly have the opportunity to score on darn near every play. The excitement of watching how the Ducks play is revolutionizing the game of college football. Nearly halfway through the season, Mariota must be considered the most feared player in the country and the frontrunner for the Heisman Trophy.

That's what all the pundits are saying, so it must be true. Right?

The advice here is to try not to get caught up in the hype and focus on some problems that most followers are blissfully unaware of or choose to ignore. Right now, watching Oregon play football is like being exposed to the lights of Las Vegas for the very first time. It is stunning and spectacular, for sure, but the fact is that the spectacle only masks some problems. And good coaches down the line will make sure to unmask those problems unless you address them soon.

Before moving into the issues, I want to make it perfectly clear that I would LOVE it if Oregon or any other Pac-12 school would run the table and stake claim to the national championship. For that to happen, though, these issues must be addressed before you take on a defense of the caliber of say, Alabama or Stanford.

Issue One:
Methinks that David Shaw and Nick Saban and any other coaches of top defensive teams will make sure to harp on the fact that many of the so-called "late pitches" toward the sidelines executed by Oregon QB's are in fact illegal forward passes. They "look great" but a quick look at the video shows that the ball is often moving forward. That's certainly OK when the move is done from behind the line of scrimmage... but it becomes an illegal forward pass when done after the QB crosses that scrimmage line. Once opposing coaches start harping on this tendency by Oregon, the refs will start looking for it.

Issue Two:
Mariota has seemed remarkably poised when in the pocket. He should have been, because so far he has known that his receivers were much faster than their defenders and that invariably they would break into a wide open space into which he could throw. The problem is that Mariota has come to depend on the "idea" that his guy will break into the open and not be covered. He is so sure of this happening that he tends to focus on only one receiver and stares at them until they break clear. He does not move his focus from target to target. He does not even bounce. He tends to stand perfectly still watching one guy and waiting for him to become open before throwing the ball. That works great when your team is clearly stronger, but does not work well when playing a team of similar skill. If Oregon wants to win a national championship, Helfrich better have Mariota work on his skills of cycling through his receivers, or savvy safeties with great speed will be putting some serious hits on Duck wideouts, or worse yet, get to the ball before the Ducks do.

Compared to the issues faced by most teams, these two things seem trivial by comparison. However, they CAN and WILL make a difference if Oregon wants to take the national title back home to Eugene. They really do have to be addressed, and it is certainly easier to work on these issues when you have the talent overwhelm your opponent. If you wait until a game is on the line to address them, you run the risk of failing to achieve your objective.

And if Marcus Mariota wants to take his performance and skills to an NFL championship level in the future, it would be better to work on these things now. Just look at Tim Tebow. He won two national championships and a Heisman Trophy, but that did not make his skills good enough to succeed at the professional level.

Like Tebow at Florida, Mariota is surrounded with exceptional talent. It may or may not be enough to win the the NCAA's biggest prizes. But winning those prizes does not make one a sure fire NFL star. And it is not just Tebow, because a lot of QB's have won the Heisman over the last 20 years or so and then went on to mediocre or non-existent NFL careers. Look 'em up.

• Gino Torretta 
• Charlie Ward
• Danny Wuerffel
• Chris Weinke
• Eric Crouch
• Jason White
• Troy Smith

Work on the right skills now instead of just riding the train of a great team, Marcus. When the NFL comes along, the awards and accolades of college don't mean a whole hell of a lot if you can't stand out against guys who are just as fast and strong as you are.

Colorado Buffaloes 2013 Opinion: Please Spare us the Musings of Slick Rick Neuheisel

The University of Colorado Buffaloes continued fall camp on Thursday and played host to the Pac-12 Network and their resident weasel "Slick Rick" Neuheisel. As a horrible past head football coach to no less than 25% of the teams in the new Pac-12, the weasely-one now returns as an "analyst" and "media celebrity." This apparently impressed the local media enough to have a plethora of articles written about whatever drivel leached out of his lips about the state of CU football, the University of Colorado, and Boulder.

It is truly an indictment of the local media that they chose to waste space that should have been allocated to Mike MacIntyre's Buffaloes by instead writing about the musings of a man who has been disgraced, fired, and frequently accused of being a liar and lawyer. I digress, of course, and must admit that calling anyone a liar and a lawyer would be redundant. But hey, after all, this is 2013 and fame is more important than anything, especially honesty and integrity.

Unfortunately for NewWeasel and the local media, some of us have been around long enough to remember the first go-round. I worked at the Daily Camera Newspaper when the boy wonder first made his way into Boulder in 1994 to work with the great Bill McCartney.

Mac had won one National Championship during his tenure coaching in Boulder, but more importantly, had come within two bad games of winning two more championships (the NC game against Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl following the 1989 season, and the 1994 game against Nebraska in Lincoln). If you had been there to see those games and those seasons, then you know what I am talking about.

McCartney shocked everyone by announcing his retirement following the game in which Rashaan Salaam wrapped up his Heisman Trophy by going over 2000 yards in a season during the season ending game with Iowa State. The 1994 team was so good that NINE Buffs were selected in the NFL Draft the following April, including SEVEN in the first three rounds.

Colorado surprised a great many people by choosing a very young Neuheisel over more experienced coaches with at least coordinator experience to become the next head coach of the Buffs for the 1995 season. I have to admit that I was excited that CU was showing rare foresight (or so I thought then) by hiring a guy who was nearly the same age I was. Judith Albino was wrong to hire Ricky Boy then, and I was wrong in thinking that a guy smart enough to get through law school and pass the bar had the dedication to be a great head coach.

As an aside, I realize that the Wikipedia page dedicated to Rick Neuheisel says he was the Offensive Coordinator for the Buffs in 1994, but that is wrong. The OC during Mac's final year was Elliot Uzelac.

Neuheisel inherited a perennial top-5 team built by Mac, and then got way too much credit when the Buffs won 10 games each of his first two seasons. In hindsight, the Buffs would have won 10 games in '95 and '96 no matter who was the coach because of the depth of the program built by McCartney. Once the program was in the hands of players developed by Neuheisel's staff, however, the wheels started to come off the program.

It was bad enough that the Buffs went from their typical 10 wins in a season to only 5 in 1997, more embarrassing still was that CU had to later forfeit their wins because they used an ineligible player. Also came revelations that there were recruiting improprieties from the very top (the big dog, or, in this case, the big weasel). Those things alone had me and other serious Buff fans calling for Ricky's job.

What really pissed me off about the articles written by the local media is that they really don't know anything about the people they are writing about. Several mentioned their incorrect belief that Buff fans were angry with Neuheisel for leaving CU to go to Washington. Nothing could be further from the truth. I became chat room friends with several people at UW fansites during that time. In a much more civilized era of college sporting discussions, I explained my misgivings about Neuheisel.

Several years later, after the general consensus that Neuheisel had embarrassed their school as well, they thanked me for trying to warn them. Years later, we marveled at the warped mentality that led UCLA to hire a man who had twice run afoul of the NCAA, leading to sanctions of his teams, and then successfully sued the NCAA and Washington for doing their own jobs poorly.

One would think that nowadays that any hiring Rick analysis would come with a comprehensive risk analysis. That is, considering his high pay, profile, and position, what does he offer as a benefit compared to potential risks to the prestige and financial health and wellbeing of the program?

All said, like most lawyers, you have to take anything Rick says with a grain of salt. Better yet, in the case of Neuheisel, you should probably add the wedge of lime and shot of tequila to make anything he says palatable. I am sure the local media, in their obsequious desire to pay homage to fame and/or infamy, believe they are entitled to share the opinions of such a man “who is like any other man, only more so.” (Casablanca). I think I share the opinions of many long time Buff fans who have the image of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men come to mind when we say we “don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.”