In his best Bud Fox (Wall Street) impersonation, CU Athletic Director Rick George indeed bagged the elephant with the hiring of Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders as our next Colorado Football head coach. In a literal split second, the CU Football program, which was the laughingstock of the NCAA and left for dead, went from an afterthought as a desired destination to top of mind for nearly every football recruit.
https://youtu.be/-WJ_2ycsHl8
As news emerged of CU offering Deion the head coaching position, pools of believers and doubters emerged. Yes, Deion had a proven track record of being a winner (NFL, MLB, coaching, recruiting), yet is Deion the right guy for CU and the Republic of Boulder? Was this an act of desperation or a brilliant administrative calculation? For years CU had wallowed in an identity crisis, and was the Prime Time identity really the answer?
Despite the naysayers, pundits and doubters, Coach Prime accepted the job. Wait, what??!!!. Oh yeah, it is on! Immediately CU reaped the benefits. CU merchandise sales shot up 700%, players far and wide signed on with CU, and it is expected that CU season tickets will sell out. We are living out, real-time, a once in a lifetime program resurgence, and there is no place on the sidelines, but plenty of room on the CU Buff bandwagon. It is time to believe again. After all, it’s the holidays and it don’t cost nothing.
https://youtu.be/Zf16YtSOaUQ
This Christmas, Santa is not the only one coming to town. So, you better watch out, and so should the rest of college football. We Coming!
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken
Like the traveler in Robert Frost’s poem, CU stands at a crossroads. Soon after this email hits your inbox, the University of Colorado will be announcing the hiring of its next football head coach. It is an understatement to say CU has struggled over the past two decades (rounding up), and that this past season has been the worst in the program’s 133-year storied history. CU has been outscored an average of 28 points / game. 2022 saw CU’s program deteriorate at an accelerated rate and currently ranked 122nd out of 131 division 1 programs. Get this hiring decision wrong, and AD Rick George will have effectively signed his own expulsion papers.
Later today CU plays #14 Utah for its final game of the season. College football loves its rivalries, and the Pac-12 looked to manufacture a rivalry between Utah and CU (which is why CU plays Utah each year as the last regular season game), when both schools joined the Pac-12 in 2011. Yet, over the years, these two schools have traveled significantly different paths to arrive at today’s game (point spread is Utah by 29.5).
For Utah, their success can be traced back to 2005, and the hiring of their current head coach Kyle Whittingham. Utah has posted a .640 winning percentage since joining the Pac-12 and is always considered a worthy opponent. For Colorado, their woes can be traced back to 2005 (ironically) with the erroneous (IMHO) firing of Coach Barnett, and the now infamous series of five unfortunate head coach hires (Hawkins, Embree, McIntyre, Tucker, Dorrel). Add in Barnett, current Interim coach Sanford and the soon to be head coach, and that is eight HC coaches during the same span Utah (our so to speak rival) has had one. No wonder these programs are viewed so differently by recruits and peers.
There is talk of potentially hiring Deon “Prime Time” Sanders as the next coach. Another top candidate is Illinois DC Ryan Walters (former Buff player). Both have their pros and cons. Time will tell who is hired, and time will tell whether it was the right decision. What we do know is today, the Buffs stand at a crossroads and are able to only choose one path. Years from now, may Buff Nation look back on this time in our program’s history and see that this (future) coaching hire has indeed made all the difference.
In a Colorado High School football game, if a team is winning by 40 or more points at any point in the game, the “mercy rule” goes into effect, and the “continuous game clock” begins to run, and it doesn’t stop until there is no time left. This expedites the end of the game for the safety and mental health of all involved. In college football there isn’t a mercy rule for a game or for a season. There are nine days left for Buff Nation to endure what has been the hardest season in decades. Nine days. This season was over the day CU came out without a clue against TCU seventy-eight days ago.
So, as CU prepares to take on #15 Washington on the road tomorrow, and then finish out the season against # 10 Utah (if feels like everyone in the pac-12 ranked except CU), the Saturday after thanksgiving, here are the good, the bad and the ugly for Buff Nation to ponder:
The Good: Interim Coach Mike Sanford. While CU continues to get crushed by their peers on the scoreboard, this is not due to lack of heart of effort. Coach Sanford has a contagious high-level of energy, and CU players are now playing with passion. If CU decides to hire Mike as the next permanent Head Coach, I will be 100% on board. I had the chance to attend a meeting with Mike (hope he doesn’t mind calling him Mike) a mere 90 minutes before CU took on the (then) #8 Oregon Ducks. He was over the top enthusiastic and positive about what CU can become. I instantly had a man-crush on him (which is why I call him Mike). I even took a picture.
The Bad: We don’t have Division 1 talent on this roster. It all left through the portal. No disrespect meant to all the hard-working Buffaloes who are on the team, but we can catch, throw, block or tackle. These are all important parts of football.
The Ugly: We are boxed in. Competing in College football is all about competing in the Transfer Portal and NIL (money). We don’t fare well in either. CU literally doesn’t offer the general and physical education degrees which are popular with college athletes, which makes it virtually impossible for CU to be competitive getting players who can help us win on the field. Every other Pac-12 school except Stanford (who is also free falling) has these programs in place. A house divided cannot stand. 2022 has proven that, and without some changes, 2023 will echo the same message.
Final Thought: Yes, CU was caught sleeping at the wheel as these changes occurred (IMHO), but at the end of the day (in nine days to be precise), what matters most is what CU does next. Are they willing to reinvent themselves to stay relevant (e.g., start up an integrated degree) or are they going to dig in their heels, stick their head in the sand, close their eyes, twinkle their knows, click their heels and point to the days of old when we were once somebody. Our new CU President Todd Saliman has come out strong in support of the CU Football program and his understanding of what football means to a university. My guess is CU is going to do the right thing and level the playing field in order to give CU coaches, players and fans a chance to be competitive and proud to call themselves Buff Nation. They better hustle. The (continuous) clock is running.
One doesn’t have to be a theologian to be familiar with the Ten Commandments, and unless you are a sociopath, most of the commandments are quite reasonable. “Thou shall not kill” (Duh). “Thou shall honor thy parents “(For sure). “Thou shall not steal” (Fine. Wait, does office paper count?).
Yet, given our Colorado Buffaloes are taking on the #8 Oregon Ducks tomorrow at Folsom Field, and the fact that Oregon has been the golden child of the Pac-12 for years, I feel the last of the commandments, “Thou Shall Not Covet…” should be an exception. Buff Nation needs the space and grace to covet the Oregon football program (even for a day). Buff Nation should desire, demand, want, covet a top ten ranked football program, and educate themselves on what that looks like, what that means, and what that takes. Tomorrow, the Ducks will show all of us what one looks like, and we should take notes.
So tomorrow, let’s look to keep most of the commandants (low bar), and covet to our hearts desire, unless of course the Buffs beat the Ducks. In that case, I’ll see you on the field.
Two thirds of the way through this 2022 CU Football season, all our questions have been answered. Perhaps not the answers we want, but we indeed know who we are and who we are not. A poor coaching hire and the loss of over twenty players to the transfer portal have left its mark. Coming into the season we all had our suspicions, but we gave the benefit of the doubt to the words our coaching staff were saying. The idea of seeing “seeing a different product” from what we were used to, was a welcomed and easy message to accept. We now know that was wishful thinking at best and vaporware at worst.
While the bloom of the fantastic OT win over Cal a couple of weeks ago has been washed away with yet another blow-out loss last week to drop CU to a lowly 1-6 on the season, there is STILL hope. This Saturday evening our (still) beloved CU Buffs will take on the Arizona State Sun Devils under the lights of Folsom field.
With the hardest part of the schedule still to come, ASU represents the best chance for one more victory. Tomorrow night at Folsom field, the Buffs will make a stand against all that has gone wrong this season, and will fight for four quarters (and OT if necessary) to come away with their second victory in three weeks. I like our interim Coach Sanford. He brings energy, hope and enthusiasm which I believe the players will parlay with the aid of a (near) sold out frenzied homecoming crowd, into a high energy, low scoring, down to the wire Buffs victory.
“There was once a dream that was Rome, you could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish.”
Marcus Aurelius, ‘The Gladiator.’
As thousands of white clad CU fans poured onto Folsom this past Saturday to celebrate the Buffs 20-13 OT victory over the Cal Bears, there was indeed a hint of what was possible, a faint whisper of good things to come. Akin to getting “a hold” of a monster golf shot keeps one coming back for more, last week’s victory lent some much-needed oxygen to a Buff Nation on life support. With a victory in hand, a new coach at the helm, and an inspired defense, a new hope emerged for Buff Nation.
One victory, even against a below average team like Cal, gets the Buffs out of the penalty box. A second victory, this time on the road against a legit Oregon State squad won’t be as easy. If our upstart OC turned interim HC Mike Sanford can somehow pull another victory out of his hat this Saturday, the Buffs will return to Folsom for a sold-out homecoming Saturday (10/29) evening nationally televised game against a very beatable Arizona State squad. Win that game and there will be talk about dropping the “interim” from the coach’s title. Coach Sanford at that point would be 3-0 and have earned the right to stand at mid-field asking Buff Nation one simple question.
I do not think about CU Football too much these days. It’s not worth it. The program has successfully sucked out any enthusiasm I may harbor for the success of the 2022 Buff season. It’s not their record (0-3) but the way they repeatedly fail to come prepared to play four quarters, compete or seemingly have a plan they are executing against. It’s shameful and hurtful, and my Darwinian instinct tells me to avoid hurt, thus I must let my emotional attachment to CU go. I’ll still go to the games, and I’ll still renew my season tickets (don’t worry Rick), but that’s more of a personal character flaw than a reflection on the quality of the CU product. Like Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, until further notice, CU only gets my minimum attention. They do not deserve more than that.
Not to pile on (we should all be upstanders), I did have to scratch my head when I saw Rick George’s letter to Buff Nation. Trying to address the difficult question of what changes are going to be made to right the CU ship, Rick pulled a Pinocchio from Shrek using a lot of words to say nothing, and effectively avoided answering the question.
So, with all that said, CU opens Pac-12 play against the UCLA Bruins tomorrow at noon at Folsom Field (still the best venue to see a college football game). A win is highly improbable, but how satisfying it would be to give annoying Chip Kelly and that wanna be USC program a “L” before they leave for greener pastures. For our part, we will be tailgating before, during and after the game at Lot 380. Come by for a beer and ribs. All your friends will be there. We promise to give you our full attention if you show up. You deserve it.
In his 2005 best-selling book, The World is Flat, author Thomas Friedman put forth the idea that the convergence of technology has allowed the explosion of wealth in the middle class, effectively “flattening” the playing field between the haves and have nots, in turn putting pressure on the haves to run faster, just to stay in the same place. While Friedman was talking about the burgeoning middle classes of China and India and how their emergence puts pressure on the United States to remain a global power, he might as well have been talking about the College Football landscape.
Last Saturday afternoon, around the same time our Colorado Buffaloes coach was trying to explain away why the Buffs remain winless on the season and how they explicitly lost by 31 to Air Force, a coach on the other side of the country, was explaining how his team effectively harnessed the use of technology to close the performance gap between his team and their opponent. The Marshall Thundering Herd (cool name) despite being a 21-point underdog, had just beaten #8 Notre Dame, a team literally not even in the thier same class (FCS vs FBS).
“When we hit the transfer portal this offseason, we were getting some guys that played considerable snaps in places,” Huff said. “We weren’t just getting a guy that went to some SEC school and never played. We were getting and recruiting guys that were either rotational guys or starters and had lost their jobs or whatever it was. “We put the roster together, and you’re like, ‘Guys, we’ve got a Power 5 roster if we just count the starters.'” Marshal effectively used the transfer portal to close the gap between them and their opponents.
As I sat rained soaked watching CU lose ground to Air Force (pictures attached), I pondered in part how can we be so below average for so long, while other schools seemingly have figured it out? A few hours later, as I read about Marshall win over Notre Dame, it became obvious, it’s not our coach (in total), it’s not the QB play (in total), it’s the Transfer Portal stupid. CU needs to do a better job of getting talent. Players that can play at a high enough level to beat top ten programs on any given Saturday should be coming to CU, not Marshall (no disrespect). Power 5 conference, Boulder setting, attractive schedule, Folsom field. This should be enough to bring and keep the talent. The CU coaching staff, and the CU administration need to do a better job of selling the CU story and make player transfer accommodations. No one likes to sit in the rain and watch their team lose by 31. Players make plays. Players win games. Right now, we don’t really have either.
Sir Isaac Newton’s third law of motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Perhaps Newton should have written a fourth law of motion stating that the refusal to act will often result in an exponential and opposite reaction. We are told that when we are on our deathbed, it’s not the things we have done in life which we will regret, but the things we didn’t do. Our kids are taught to be “upstanders” not “bystanders” when they see wrong. In baseball you can’t steal second by keeping your foot on first.
Last Friday night, on a stage which was filled with electricity of both the literal (45-minute lightning delay) and figurative kind (amped up Buff Nation crowd – first photo), it was not the action taken by the Buffs which has drawn the ire of a frustrated and impatient Buff Nation, but the failure to take action which caused those watching to scratch their heads and leave in frustration (second photo).
On a night when Buff Nation was willing to allow bygones to be bygones (it’s been a long drought), Coach Karl Dorrell and the Colorado Buffaloes failed to act. After a relatively strong first half, the “upgraded” Buff coaching staff got out coached in every phase of the game by a TCU team, which many would argue is a bottom half Big Twelve program and certainly a tertiary Texas football team.
Refusing to start QB JT Shrout in the second half, failing to go for a fourth and five on the TCU 45 with the game slipping away, and failing to make any meaningful adjustments over the course of two quarter of play feels to me like someone is asleep at the wheel or perhaps quite comfortable being a middling team.
The good news is we are early in the season. The Buff faithful need to hold strong for their team (no one else is going to do it). Tomorrow the Buffs travel down I-25 to Colorado Springs to take on a particularly good Air Force team. No way Coach KD doesn’t start JT Shrout. The Buffs need to play with reckless abandon and JT is the type of gunslinger QB capable of leading the Buffs to victory. If that is not enough, well at least we struck out swinging and didn’t fail because we violated Newton’s fourth law of motion.
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.
