Winning is the currency of football. CU has had its fair share of success, but as we know, the last several years have been a disaster. When the transfer portal, NIL (Name Image Likeness) and invitations to conference realignments came around, our proud Buffaloes were caught on the outside looking in. To the victors, go the spoils, and we just did not have enough currency to compete.
It is said that the most important shot in golf is the next one. For the Buffs, tonight’s game under the Friday night lights of Folsom field, represents that next shot. Come 8PM, when our Golden Buffaloes (is that still part of the nomenclature?) line up against the TCU Horned Frogs on ESPN, it doesn’t matter that the over under on wins this year is 3.5 (vomit), nor that the pundits have made CU a two-touchdown underdog at home (shameful). It doesn’t matter that no one outside Boulder County really considers the Buffs a factor in D1 football. It doesn’t matter that Midnight Mel left CU (still bitter) for the money and has since been justified (ugh). It doesn’t matter that past actions have provided seemingly zero momentum for this CU Football program. What does matter is currency. A frenzied home field, black-out crowd, looped up from an extended Friday pre-labor day season kickoff evening tailgate, will create the atmosphere necessary for the players to believe in themselves and to take matters into their own hands. Come just before the strike of midnight tonight, Colorado will have either given Buff Nation a reason to feel the love, or confirm our greatest fear, that the park is closed for yet another season.
The Buffs finish out their 2021 season tomorrow, in a rare Friday appearance. While many will be taking advantage of Black Friday shopping sales, the Buffs will be facing a strong, consistent, and proud Utah team that represents everything the Buffs would like to represent. While Colorado and Utah entered the Pac-12 together (2011), Utah has navigated it’s way to the top with greater speed and success than the Buffs. Tomorrow, CU will be facing a Utah team ranked #16 in the country, and hitting on all cylinders. While CU loses this game in a blow out, perhaps this game will serve as motivation for the Buffs to see up close and personal what the Buff program will look like in the future.
On this Thanksgiving Day, here are ten things Buff Nation can be thankful for:
10)Jack Lamb – 88 yardfumble rumble touchdown against Washington last Saturday. The game goes a different direction without that play. Watching that herd of buffaloes lead the way was nothing short of inspiring.
9)Nate Landman – The quintessential football player. An inspiration to any boy watching who wants to play tackle football.
8)Nebraska – We are not Nebraska.
7) 1990 National Champions – This program has been there before and won’t be satisfied until it returns. It’s going to happen.
6) Ralphie – Well, maybe not so much this season given she (all raphies tend to be female) needs to grow, but hands down the best mascot in college sports.
5)J.T. Shrout – Buffs will have significant QB competition going into next season.
4)Youth movement – Only five seniors on this squad, the Buffs will be returning most of their players.
3) Folsom Field – One the best venues to watch college football
Folsom Field
2)Boulder – The best place to live in the world. Period.
1) Buff Nation – Friends and family on a Fall Day in Boulder when the Buffs are in town. As close to Heaven as one gets on this earth. Who’s got it better than us? Nobody!
In a span of three hours last Saturday night, Buff Nation lived through a Charles Dickens novel. Playing on the road against a heavily favored UCLA Bruins squad, the Buff came out guns blazing and took a commanding 20-7 lead just before half-time. CU was back, and we were keeping our dream of bowl eligibility alive. It was the best of times.
Unfortunately, football is made up of two separate halves, and the winner is not declared until the end of the second half. While not new information for most, it may have been enlightening to the Buff coaching staff. UCLA made all the necessary adjustments, while the Buffs made none. UCLA scored thirty-seven straight points, yup thirty-seven, and throttled the Buffs 44-20. It was the worst of times.
So, with that debacle in our rear-view mirror, we turn our sights to tomorrow, the Buffs final home game of the season. One final time to honor CU greats Nate Landman and Mustafa Johnson who played their hearts out for Buff Nation for so many years. One final chance for CU to give their fans a W (certainly not going to happen next week on the road at Utah), and one final reason to have Great Expectations for 2021 (can you say J.T. Shrout?).
So, here is to beating the Washington Huskies, who have had an equally disastrous season (they fired their head coach earlier this week) and finish out this season strong. While a victory wouldn’t necessarily be field rushing worthy, a victory would be a blessed way to end another season at Folsom field, and a fine start to the holiday season.
In the late 19th Century, the political philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche came upon the scene promoting the idea, that life is what we make of it, and our reality is shaped by our actions, and a failure to act will lead us to the “abyss” and become a part of nothing.
Saturday evening under the lights of Folsom, Buff QB Brendan Lewis (BL) found himself staring into the abyss (I know I was on his behalf). Facing a 3rd and 15 from the Oregon State 16, down by four, with under three minutes to go in the game, it was do or die. Be someone or be nothing. At that moment I wanted to give BL a pep talk like the one Bud Fox received in Wall Street. It was BL’s moment of truth. Seconds later, a TD strike to Montana Lemonious-Craig (could there be a longer name) with only inches to spare, gave the Buffs the lead, and ultimately the victory.
Big time players make big time plays in big time games, and perhaps this was BL’s coming of age Red Dawn moment. Only time will tell (possibly as soon as tomorrow night when the Buffs take on UCLA on the road at the Rose Bowl), but that throw, on that night, may be the inflection point where BL becomes a top-tier Pac-12 QB, and the abyss which has silently and patiently been lurching in the shadows of this season will need to find another program to wait on, because as Nietzsche is so fond of saying, that which does not kill you, makes you stronger.
Tomorrow, under the lights of Folsom Field at 5PM, our CU Buffs take on the Oregon State Beavers. With the good, comes the bad, and if there was ever a game from CU’s past which has accelerated this program down a path of heartache and tears, it is the tragic loss to the Beavers the last time OSU came to Boulder.
On that fateful day on October 27, 2018, CU hit rock bottom and found a way to lose a game in which they were dominating 31-3 in the second half, eventually losing 41-34 in OT. Football is a game of inches and a literal inch on multiple occasions would have changed the outcome. Win, and CU gains bowl eligibility. Instead, coaches got fired, coaches got hired, coaches turned trench coat, and replacement coaches were ushered in right under the Covid wire, all adding fuel to the dumpster fire which is the current condition of the CU Football program.
The team and staff that takes the field tomorrow, continue to carry the burden of that loss. They better because Buff Nation certainly does. A win against the heavily favored Beavers tomorrow would go a long way to dosing those flames of pain and suffering and provide some much-needed oxygen into this proud CU program.
It is time for CU to win a game they are not supposed to win, just like they lost a game they were not supposed to lose last time OSU was in town.
