With Mike MacIntyre's 4th Season at Colorado Looming, A Look Back at Bill McCartney's 4th Year in 1985

With the Colorado Buffs' 2016 season opener against CSU approaching fast, Buff fans are hoping that the 4th year is the charm for head coach Mike MacIntyre, and that the season ends with a bowl game for the first time since 2007. For a little inspiration, Buff fans should be looking back to 1985, when Bill McCartney (CU's first "Coach Mac") coached his 4th season in Boulder.

Many Colorado fans younger than myself know that Bill McCartney was a coaching legend who led the Buffs to the National Championship and is also CU's all-time most winning football coach. But the winning ways for McCartney did not start right away, There was penance to pay and building to be done before the winning started.

In Mac I's first three years, his record as head coach was 7-25-1. That's only seven wins out of 33 games. Not only that, but the record in 1984 was only 1-10. The Buffs were a mainstay in the infamous Bottom 10. Nobody in the national or local sports media expected much (if anything) from Colorado.

But a funny thing happened at Colorado after the 1984 one-win season. The new athletic director Bill Marolt recognized something special in what McCartney was doing and realized that the changes were just not showing up in the win column yet. Despite Mac's abysmal record, Marolt chose to extend McCartney's contract. That decision was met with some surprise and amusement by the local media. But Marolt turned out to be right.

Back in 1985, the Big 8 was known around the country as the Big 2 and the Little 6. Those two, however, were two of the most winning football programs in the history of college football. The 1985 season ended with Oklahoma winning another National Championship and Nebraska finishing at number 10, continuing their traditions at Top 10 programs.

Something was very different for Colorado in 1985. They finished the regular season with SEVEN wins and 3rd place in the Big 8. Coach McCartney won as many games in 1985 as he had won in his first three seasons combined. The four losses in the regular season were to teams ranked in the Top 12 teams in the country, including a 3 point loss to eventual national champion Oklahoma. How impressive was that accomplishment? McCartney was voted Big 8 Coach of the Year in the same season as another coach in the conference (Barry Switzer) won a national title!

After that breakout year, McCartney never had another losing season again. In the 10 years following AD Bill Marolt extending Mac's contract, his teams won 86 games and played for the national title twice. In fact, they were one bad game from playing another championship in 1994.

Mike MacIntyre has a three year coaching record at Colorado of  10-27. Nobody in the national media would be surprised if the Buffs limped to another losing record and Mike MacIntyre was looking for a new job by the end of the year. By the same token, some of us wouldn't be surprised if the Buffs broke through this year and won 7 games (or more) like the first coach Mac in 1985.

It would be a tough task, tougher even than the one faced by McCartney. With Colorado now playing in the Pac-12, they have five teams in the conference in the Top 25, and a total of 7 in the top 29. Back in 1985, the Buffs only had 7 conference games to worry about. The current Buffs have NINE conference games (10 if they make it to the conference championship).

The Pac-12 is a much harder conference to play in than almost any other in the country, so the current coach Mac has his work cut out for him. But the foundation has been built, and Mac's gang is ready to bust out... or not.

Mike Tyson used to say, "Everyone has a plan 'till they get punched in the mouth!"

The first game is now just a week away. We'll find out then whether the Buffs will be punching back like the 1985 Buffs under Bill McCartney.

Mike MacIntyre's CU Buffs Didn't Have a Chance in Corvallis... and it was NOT because of the players

When Brian Lindgren and Mike MacIntyre look at themselves in the mirror today, they will be looking upon the main reason their team wasted a huge opportunity in their 44-17 loss to Oregon State. When the rest of the coaching staff looks in the mirror, they should know that they had the chance to change what was happening... but nothing was done to alter the outcome.

The reason the Buffs were given no chance by their coaches is blindingly simple. Yet, even a day later, what I see out of this staff is a collective head scratching and a muttering of idiotic catchphrases like "we have to look at the tape" to breakdown what went wrong. Let me save you guys a little time...

It's the Wind, Stupid!

Bill Clinton election theme in 1992 was "It's the economy, stupid!" and it poked fun at the economic policies of George Bush. It's an apt analogy here that the CU coaching staff should think about when looking at the tape of the game.

• When you look at the tape, look at MacIntyre's hair blowing sideways off his head due to the 40+ mph winds blowing through Reser Stadium.
• Look at the first half as OC Brian Lindgren repeatedly calls long out passes across the wind that had LITTLE chance for success.
• Hell, watch the halftime report from the Pac-12 network. Rick Neuheisel and company pointed out the obvious by stating the wind was too strong to throw the ball "outside the numbers." 
• Despite the weather, Lindgren ordered the Buffs to piss and spit over and over and over again into the wind. 
• MacIntyre stood by and let it happen, and both now seem dumbfounded by the fact that their offensive players ended up with piss and spit all over themselves.

Kent Baer's Defense was Ready to Play.

Watch the first half of the game, and you come away mightily impressed with the game plan put together by DC Kent Baer and the other defensive coaches. The mighty OSU offense struggled to move the ball or convert on third down. Even when catches were made, the Buffs were almost always providing excellent coverage.

The defensive line was harassing Sean Mannion and putting him on the ground. Linebacker Addison Gillam was again all over the field. DB Greg Henderson once again showed he is a ball hawk of the highest order.

Unfortunately, you could see the frustration begin to set in as the defensive players seem to realize that no matter how much opportunity they gave the Buffs' offense, the play calling of Brian Lindgren effectively doomed any chance that Connor Wood and the offense had to build a rhythm of success.

In hindsight, it could be reasonably argued that anything positive created by the offense was sheer dumb luck. By the end of the second quarter, the defense realized that fact and it took a bit of the wind out of their sails. On top of that, the OSU offensive coordinator adjusted HIS play calling to account for the wind.

Toby Neinas Should Wear a Bag Over His Head

Much was made of the hiring of Toby Neinas as a full time special teams coordinator. Special teams had been a nightmare for the Buffs the last several years and the conventional wisdom was that a full time coach devoted to this part of the team would help immensely. As is often the case, conventional wisdom was wrong. Special teams continues to be an embarrassment.

MacIntyre's Buffs would be better served by a scarecrow with these simple points taped to his chest:

• Coverage Team: Tackle the guy with the ball.
• Return Team: Block the guys trying to tackle your guy with the ball.
• Returners: Catch the ball and HOLD onto the ball until the whistle blows. Run with the ball ONLY if you can manage the first two parts.

It is really quite simple. But I guess if you cannot figure out the wind is blowing hard it might be seem complex. Right now, unless Neinas is doing amazing things on the recruiting trail, his paycheck is a waste of taxpayer dollars.

 The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Often Go Awry

The gist of the old Scot saying was highlighted by poet Robert Burns and later immortalized by John Steinbeck in his classic novella "Of Mice and Men" about a couple of guys in Depression Era California. It is a short and easy but very powerful book that the entire CU Buff coaching staff should read THIS weekend.

One of the morals to the story is that things change. The application of that thought for the Buff coaches must be that they HAVE to be aware that playing conditions strongly influence what can and will work and what will NOT.

The Ice Bowl

The effect of playing conditions in football were most famously demonstrated in 1967 during the NFL Championship game at frigid Lambeau Field between Tom Landry's Dallas Cowboys and Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers.

At playing time, the temperature in Green Bay was 15 degrees BELOW zero. The wind chill was nearly 50 degrees below zero. Every football coach should be able to talk about the adjustments that had to be made by both players and coaches in that famous game.

The game winning touchdown was scored on fourth down near the end of the game when quarterback Bart Starr followed his guard Jerry Kramer into the endzone on a quarterback sneak. Later, when asked by the media why the Packers did not simply kick a field goal to send the game into overtime instead of risking a loss by going for it on 4th down, Lombardi said it was "too cold" to take the game into overtime. Kramer later immortalized the game and play in his book "Instant Replay" with Dick Schaap.

Everyone Has a Plan Until They Get Punched in the Face

Boxer Mike Tyson made that famous comment in response to questions about the lateral movement and jabs of an upcoming opponent. It pointed out that many great plans are destroyed by the reality of the moment.

The game against Oregon State in Corvallis was one of those moments in which reality punched the CU coaches in the face. It was not the Beavers who did the punching. It was not Sean Mannion. It was the WIND. And Brian Lindgren and Mike MacIntyre were knocked stupid by it.

Which Way Did He Go, George? Which Way Did He Go?

According to the New York Times, the classic characters of Lennie and George were "endlessly parodied" by cartoons of the 40's and 50's. One of the most common of those parodies was of a big, goofy, Lennie-type character being confused about something and asking breathlessly, "Which way did he go, George? Which way did he go?" Unfortunately for the Colorado Buffaloes, the part played by OC Brian Lindgren was that of Lennie.

Let's hope that in the future, Mr. Lindgren doesn't have such a hard time figuring out which way the wind is blowing.