It's Been 3287 Days Since the Colorado Buffaloes Last Played in a Bowl Game

Before today, the last time the CU Buffs played in a bowl game was way back on December 30, 2007. The Independence Bowl opponent that day was Alabama. Yes, that Alabama. 

In 2007, both the Buffs and the Crimson Tide had what their fans called disappointing seasons. Each team entered the Independence Bowl following 6-6 seasons.

The Buffs started poorly, throwing an interception on their first offensive play. Alabama raced out to a 27-0 lead by early in the 2nd quarter before Colorado got their act together and made a game out of it. Unfortunately for the Buffs, the lead was too big to overcome and they lost by a final of 30-24.

Coincidentally, the Crimson Tide had played  in the Independence Bowl the year before as well, where they lost to Oklahoma State, Colorado's opponent in today's Alamo Bowl.

After the game, Buffs fans were excited by how Colorado came back and looking forward to a bright future. Alas, twas not to be. The Buffs never won more than 5 games in a season over the next eight years, until breaking through in a big way this year to win 10 games.

We all know what happened to Alabama after barely holding on to beat the Buffs back in 2007... they have gone on to win FOUR national championships and are heavy favorites to win their 5th under Nick Saban this season.

"A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens most eloquently stated the differences in the two programs since that time.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

 All that changed this year as the Buffs put together a breakthrough year under National Coach of the Year Mike MacIntyre. They may not be back in Alabama's class just yet, but this year no team in the country (not including the NFL) appears to be in the same class as the Tide. The Buffs have made their way back to the Top 10 for the first time since the 2001 season.

The future looks very bright for the Colorado Buffaloes. The culture has changed for the better. The stands are full again. The university  has world class facilities. Top recruits are hoping to come to Boulder. And football is fun again at Colorado.

The young men who made it happen should be in our good graces for as long as they live. The seniors going out this year came to Boulder at the worst time in the long and storied history of Colorado football. But they came determined to revive the program, and they achieved that goal against all odds.

The Buffaloes were picked to finish LAST in the Pac-12 South this year. Can't really blame the prognosticators, though, since that's where CU had been every year since joining the Pac-12. But the remarkable young men talked openly that their goal was to win the Pac-12 Championship. 

Fans and media alike chuckled at the thought, and hoped that the Buffs would finally make it to a bowl game... ANY bowl game. But for the players, that goal was not high enough. They wanted to play in the Pac-12 title game and then they went out and EARNED it. It wasn't USC or UCLA or Utah or Arizona State representing the Pac-12 South, it was these Buffs.

 And we couldn't be prouder. Go Buffs! Beat them Cowboys!

Pac-12 Coach of the Year Mike MacIntyre and DC Jim Leavitt in Line for Big Raises

To absolutely no one's surprise, Colorado's Mike MacIntyre was named Pac-12 Coach of the Year today. Since Mac is listed as the odds-on favorite for National Coach of the Year, many saw the Pac-12 nod as a formality. Such are the expectations when your team improves from 4-8 (1-8 in conference) the previous season to 10-2 (8-1 in Pac-12 play), and a #9 ranking nationally.

The other coaches in the Top 10 earned a combined total of $39,682,747 between them. That's an average of $4,409,194 apiece.

Mike MacIntyre's salary of  $2,011,450 was less than HALF of the average of the top 10, with only Wisconsin's Paul Christ ($2,706,200) joining Mac under the $3 million threshold.

Seven schools pay their head coaches salaries of $5 MILLION or more. Jim Harbaugh at Michigan leads the pack with more than $9 Million. Nick Saban at Alabama earns close to $7 million. And Urban Meyer at Ohio State earns more than $6 million. Others in the $5 million range include Bob Stoops at Oklahoma, Jimbo Fisher at Florida State, Kevin Sumlin at Texas A&M, and Charlie Strong (now fired) at Texas.

In the Pac-12, MacIntyre was the lowest paid coach in the conference this year. David Shaw at Stanford pulled in the highest salary at more than $4 million. Six more coaches in the conference make more than $3 million per year. And four earn between $2.5 and $3 million. And then, way down at the bottom, more than a half million less than his lowest paid conference peer is Mike MacIntyre.

If you compare cost per victory in the Pac-12 this season, the numbers are even more startling.  MacIntyre earned just over $201,000 per victory this year. The next lowest (or most efficient) went to Mike Leach at Washington State. He was paid $368,750 per victory. His pay per victory was almost double MacIntyre's.

The least efficient salaries as far as the schools were concerned went to Rich Rodriguez at Arizona ($953K per victory), Jim Mora at UCLA ($863K per victory) and Mark Helfrich at Oregon ($828K per victory).

The average cost per victory in the Pac-12 (not including Colorado) was around $592,000 That means the average cost per victory not earned by Colorado was almost THREE times higher than what Mike MacIntyre earned.

Mac has done his job, and now it's time for AD Rick George and the University of Colorado to pay the piper and compensate their head football coach and the assistant coaches as well. 

Top of the line Defensive Coordinators are now making $1-1.5 MILLION per year. No one can doubt that Jim Leavitt is one of the top DC's in all of college football. In fact, Leavitt is a finalist for the Broyles Award, which goes to the top assistant in college football.

Three of the finalists for the Broyles Award are defensive coordinators at Michigan, Alabama and Clemson. The head coaches of those schools collectively earn in excess of $21 Million. Needless to say, their DC's earn significantly more than Leavitt's $500K.

Unless the Buffs want to find themselves facing a defense that Leavitt is coaching, they need to do whatever is necessary to keep him in Boulder. Pay him commensurate with his top notch peers and there will be a much better chance that he doesn't bolt for a better paying job. 

Leavitt loves Boulder. His wife Jody loves Boulder. His kids love Boulder. Buffs fans in Boulder love Leavitt.  The University of Colorado needs to commit the dollars to keep this love affair going.

Colorado Buffs Win a Rare One on the Road

All Buff fans know that the Colorado football team has been having a tough time for a good long while now. 2007 was the last time that CU managed to win half their games and qualify for a bowl game.

That Independence Bowl game following the 2007 season was a pivotal point for two programs with great histories. The Colorado Buffs and the Alabama Crimson Tide entered the game with identical 6-6 records. The Tide prevailed 30-24 in a close game that was supposed to be the start of good things for both programs.

It was the turning point for Alabama under Nick Saban, as they went on to win 3 of the next 5 National Championships, and are now considered to be the most dominant program in the country.

What about Colorado? Following a rare road win in 2007 against Texas Tech, the Buffs went on to lose 23 straight games played on the road, not counting neutral site games. They haven's been to a bowl game since the clash with Alabama.

They finally broke that string at the end of the 2011 season when they managed to take down Utah on the road in the season finale. Their next road game took the Buffs to Fresno State, where they gave up 35 points in the first quarter on their way to losing 69-14.

They were on their way to being blown out again the next week at Washington State when the Cougars pulled one of the biggest meltdowns in conference history by giving up a 20 point lead in the final 7 minutes of the game and losing to CU. If nothing else, that gave the Buffs 2 wins out of their previous three road trips. That winning percentage would not hold up, however, as the Buffs had lost every road game since then until...

Colorado 41, UMass 38

Forget the fact that Colorado was a 17 point favorite going into the game.

Forget that since the Minutemen had joined the FBS, they had a combined record of 2-23.

Forget everything about UMass, and remember that road victories for the Buffs don't happen very often. That being the case, Buff fans should savor this victory because it might be a good long time before they see another one.

In fact, it might be a good long time before the Buffs see a victory of any kind. Arizona State's potent offense, led by chief gunslinger Taylor Kelly, is champing at the bit to get on the field with the Buffs. Even Hawaii, who comes to Boulder the week after the Sun Devils, is greatly improved. Their one point loss to a top 25 Pac-12 team in the first game of the season has them thinking that the Buffs might be ripe for the taking. And after that, it's nothing but Pac-12 level offenses and defenses for the Buffs to contend with.

For one week, at least, Buff fans and players should enjoy the knowledge that the team won one on the road. Enjoy the feeling. You never know when you'll be able to feel it again.

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.