Colorado Football 2014: A look back and a look forward

Every year at this time, Buff fans ready themselves for another season of college football at the University of Colorado. They count the days and the hours until that opening kickoff.  Hope springs eternal like a guiding light, and fans hope that light shines on a better tomorrow. Here before the first game, all teams are undefeated and looking forward to a winning season that is rewarded by a trip to a bowl game.

The last time the CU Buffs went bowling was way back to the 2007 season, in the one year in five that Dan Hawkins coached the team to six wins. His predecessor, Gary Barnett, had handed over a team that had won its division of the Big 12 four times in the previous five years. Barnett was the last coach to lead the Buffs to a bowl game victory following the 2004 season.

Historically, the Buffs have only performed marginally during bowl games, with a record of 12 wins and 16 defeats. That may seem like a poor record but the competition at the bowl level is certainly higher than the regular season.

The legendary Bill McCartney led the Buffs to the most bowl games, with nine appearances.  After a rough first three years as head coach at CU, those nine bowl games came in the last ten years of his tenure. Only three of Mac's seasons ended with a bowl victory, but one of them was for the National Championship. It was the 2nd straight year that the Buffs had gone bowling as the #1 team in the country.

Gary Barnett and Eddie Crowder each led the Buffs to five bowl games. Crowder's Buffs won three times, and Barnett led them to two victories. The best record in bowl games for the Buffs goes to Rick Neuheisel, whose teams won all three of their bowl games in his four years in Boulder. All three of his bowl teams finished in the AP Top 10.

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Getting ready for the 2014 season, Buff fans are very hopeful that the team might win six games. The Buffs won four games last year under new head coach Mike MacIntyre, which was four times as many as they won the year before under Jon Embree, when they finished 1-11. And those familiar with the struggles of the Buffs over the last seven years know that the one win in 2012 was an absolute fluke, when Washington State imploded and lost a 20 point lead in the last 8 minutes of the game.

When MacIntyre was hired, Colorado was arguably the worst team in the FBS. Players brought in by prior coaching staffs were washing out of school at an alarming rate, and those who stuck it out played for coaches who did little to develop them as either football players or students.

That's all changed under MacIntyre. Due to proper training techniques, games lost to injury dropped drastically in 2013. Players are held accountable as students first, and only then can they play on the gridiron. Those who stray outside the lines when it comes to legal matters are dealt with severely and correctly. (This is NOT Nebraska, which seems to welcome felons with open arms as long as they can help the team.)

Due to attrition, Mac and staff last year had one of the youngest teams in the country. This year they are THE youngest. It will be an uphill struggle to compete on a week to week basis in the Pac-12.

Most top teams in the country have a system in which new recruits come in and redshirt for a year, and then serve as backups for a couple years before becoming starters as upperclassmen. Those 3 years of learning the system, training and developing their bodies allows them to be as strong as they can be before taking the field of battle.

Because of their youth and lack of depth, the Buffs have had to play many true freshman and sophomores over the last several years. It showed as they were manhandled by stronger men, especially in the trenches.

For the first time in way too long, the Buffs finally have some depth on the offensive line. In the past several years, it has been hard for the Buffs to even split the team into two squads for scrimmages because there were not enough offensive linemen to man two squads. Now their numbers are way up and there are enough men to create competition at every position.

There is an old saying, "May the best man win!" When someone has no competition, they win their position just by the virtue of being there. Finally, this year, there are talented and numerous men fighting for the jobs manning the trenches. This alone could be the difference between a winning season and another losing one.

Unfortunately, even if the Buffs make a great improvement, it may not be reflected on the win totals. As fans, we may need to look at the scores and the stats to see the improvement. A  loss by 7 points may be heartbreaking, but it is a massive improvement over the days when Colorado lost by 30, 40, or even 50 points.

The biggest "wins" this year may very well be losses in which we are still in the game in the 4th quarter. A big win this year is if we are not giving up touchdowns on defense at the same rate we are making first downs on offense. The Buffs have a tough road ahead, and must work the process put together by the coaches.

They may not go bowling this year... but they should be light years ahead of 2012 and significantly stronger and better than 2013.

Buff Fans Should Look to Arizona and Lute Olson for Inspiration

Not all that long ago, the Colorado Buffaloes Men's Basketball program was the mostly forgotten little brother to the mighty CU Football program. Over the years, heck, over the decades, the CU hoopsters were a model of mediocrity. Not that they were lacking in excitement, mind you. On occasion they played top 20 teams very tough when they cam to Boulder. On the road, though, especially in conference play, the Buffs were frequently a guaranteed a big fat L in the loss column.

Those who are new to rooting for the Buffs have been spoiled by the excellence of head coach Tad Boyle. In his four years at the helm in Boulder, the Buffs have won 92 games. For you non-math people, that's an average of 23 wins per year. To put that number in the proper perspective, remember that in the more than 100 years that Colorado played basketball before Boyle arrived, they had exactly FOUR twenty win seasons. Boyle has had the same number in only 4 years.

The most dominant team in the Pac-12 for the last 30 years has been the University of Arizona. Indeed, most younger people seem to think that Arizona's basketball excellence goes back a LONG, LONG time like Kansas, Kentucky, or North Carolina. But it is not true. It was the arrival of Lute Olson in 1983 who turned Arizona into a basketball powerhouse.

Like Colorado, the University of Arizona had a long history of mediocrity in college basketball. Before the arrival of Lute Olson, the Wildcats were one of the worst teams in the entire country. Arizona did not make it to the Big Dance in Olson's first season in Tucson. The same can be said for Tad Boyle's first team at Colorado.

The next three years, Arizona and Colorado have in common three trips to March Madness and three early losses in the tournament (only the 2012 CU team got past the first game). For Arizona, they were the first three of 23 CONSECUTIVE trips to the Big Dance. Included in that 23 year run were a national championship, a runner-up, 4 trips to the Final Four, 7 spots in the Elite Eight, and 11 appearances in the Sweet 16.

The last team that won fewer than 20 games for Lute Olson was the 1986-7 team which finished only 18-12, but still made it to the NCAA tournament. The next year the Wildcats went 35-3 and made it to the Final Four.

Why the history lesson? Many fans of Colorado took the 3rd straight defeat in the opening round (Round of 64, maybe? I refuse to call it the 2nd round) as a sign that bad things are ahead for the Buff basketball program.

The truth is that this is the early stages of the the Golden Era for Colorado basketball. Earlier this year we were ranked in the top 15 in the country! A couple of injuries changed everything, and the Buffs limped into postseason play with one of the youngest teams in the country.

Next year the Buffs  youngsters will be a year older and a year stronger. New blood is coming in as well. Count on 20 wins again, and maybe considerably more. Also count on the Buffs to be in the NCAA tournament once again. And if the University of Colorado knows what is in the best interest of the school and fans, they will do what is necessary to keep Tad Boyle the head coach at Colorado for a long, long time.

Colorado Buffs Embarrass Themselves at the Big Dance in Orlando

Although it is only halftime as this is written, it is perfectly safe to say that the CU Buffs are "one and done" at this year's Big Dance. Now, getting to March Madness for the third year in a row is something for the Buffs to celebrate. More importantly, right now, the Buffs should be celebrating that most fans back home in Colorado DID NOT see their atrocious performance against Pittsburgh because the game was started at 11:40 in the morning Colorado time.

HALFTIME SCORE: PITT 46, COLORADO 18

No, that is not a typo. The Buffs were behind by 28 points in the first 20 minutes of the game to a team seeded lower than Colorado. Boyle should send 5 guys (or maybe 4 guys and a girl) from the C-Unit out to finish the game in the second half, because they couldn't do any worse than his scholarship players.

I don't know if Colorado planned any extra-curricular activities in Orlando, but if they did they should cancel them. Or, at the very least, make sure that none of the players wears CU apparel out in public. That way they might be able to avoid the finger pointing and laughter that might be hurled their way. No worries, though, since they would not be able to catch anything hurled their way anyway... not if their play today was any indication.

For those of us fans who were unfortunate enough to be able to watch the first half, it was like going  back in time to watching the 2012 CU football team. The game against Fresno State springs to mind.

Thank goodness we can now focus our attention on the Spring practices of Mike MacIntyre's Buff football team. After winning four games last year, hopes are high that the Buffs will win at least six games this year and become bowl eligible for the first time since 2007. In any case, after today, CU football and men's basketball fans can't face another defeat until at least September.

And, hopefully, it will be much longer before either team gets destroyed as badly as the Buff got today.

Happy Vernal Equinox! It's a beautiful time of year to be doing something besides watching sports on TV.