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Are the Buffs Improving?

aghcsm

Well-Known Member
There has been general consensus on AllBuffs (though not unanimous) that in 2014 and 2015 the Buffs have been continuing to improve, if slowly and marginally. Closer losses than pre-2014 have been cited as primary evidence.

Because intensity is so key to top-level football performance, I am concerned that lack of intensity by opponents has led to the reduced margin of Buff losses, rather than team improvement. In other words, as an upper-tier PAC 12 team wins by 4 or 5 touchdowns for a couple of years, players simply cannot generate the internal intensity necessary to repeat the (perceived unnecessary) effort year after year. The Buffs are not high school level, they've got some good players (a couple of great ones), and an opponent with more talent but low intensity performance will find itself in a battle.

There may be no definite resolution to this question, but I'm wondering if this makes a lot of sense, no sense etc to ABers. The implications are very significant, as "no real improvement" implies that the current coaching staff is failing in its mission to restore the program to respectability, and therefore should be replaced. It also is a depressing thought as we all want to believe the signs that we're on the road back, and these signs may be illusions.

The WSU outcome reinforced this thought to me, as the Cougs will be high-intensity all year from the excitement of finally having a good team. Utah? Remains to be seen...
 
I understand the sentiment. We usually immediately go down 14, teams put it on cruise control and we fight back. Near the end the Buffs have a chance to pull it off, but lack the talent and mental toughness to pull out a W against a good team that is playing with a must-stop-them mentality.

The team has been improving, but I don't like the constant comparison to the Embree era. From Hawk to Embree each coach has been given a pass since it was burnt to the ground. Until it was too late.

So do I think the team is improving? Absolutely. Outside Stanford and USC our guys look the part. That's a big step in the right direction. Does that mean we are improving fast enough? 2-22 or whatever our conference record says suggests otherwise. Running for 85 yards against the 127th ranked run defense suggests otherwise. Not scoring a TD against a team that gives up points 95% of the time in the RZ suggests otherwise. Winning on the road, even against a bad Oregon State says we are improving.

It's not a black and white issue. It's also why I dislike the "if we were in the ACC we'd be in the middle of the pack" or "we wouldn't be a bottom feeder in the Big 12" (although some teams would paste us worse than we've been beaten this year and even a bad ISU team shutout Texas).
 
The intensity of our opponents this year is not less than it was in the N number of years before this year.
 
buffaholic said:
The intensity of our opponents this year is not less than it was in the N number of years before this year.
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That may be true, I don't know how to measure intensity other than guessing from outcome / gme flow. . I expect players can tell if they're going all out or not, but of course they're not going to admit slacking. Think it's mostly an issue for defense and OL, maybe RB, not so much for QB and WR.
 
Sure as hell does not feel like we are improving. We continue to be the toilet paper that wipes CFB's rectum.
 
aghcsm said:
I am concerned that lack of intensity by opponents has led to the reduced margin of Buff losses, rather than team improvement.
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I don't think teams come out with less intensity against us. They see us fighting and coming close and know they could lose to us. We just run out of gas cuz we don't have the bench depth and we lack a quality QB with the clutch gene.
 
aghcsm said:
That may be true, I don't know how to measure intensity other than guessing from outcome / gme flow. . I expect players can tell if they're going all out or not, but of course they're not going to admit slacking. Think it's mostly an issue for defense and OL, maybe RB, not so much for QB and WR.
Click to expand...

Of course it's true. Our opponents are not taking us less seriously now than when we were blown out by Fresno State before half! Are they taking us more seriously? Perhaps not. But certainly they are not taking us less seriously. You lost all cred with that.

Keep that variable the same, look at EVERY metric available, and you will conclude we are improving. Your opening post is just not supportable.

Now if you said, "we may not be as close to USC or UCLA (et. al) as these close games would seem to indicate", then you would have a point that is debatable. But that's not the thesis your trying to support here.
 
buffaholic said:
The intensity of our opponents this year is not less than it was in the N number of years before this year.
Click to expand...
The teams aren't the same, either. I consider this a down year in the Pac 12. The Oregon that we played is not the Oregon that plastered USC. Obviously, USC is having issues, and UCLA is Jeckyl and Hyde. You can't make any conclusions based on scores from year to year. The teams change too much.
 
buffaholic said:
Of course it's true. Our opponents are not taking us less seriously now than when we were blown out by Fresno State before half! Are they taking us more seriously? Perhaps not. But certainly they are not taking us less seriously. You lost all cred with that.

Keep that variable the same, look at EVERY metric available, and you will conclude we are improving. Your opening post is just not supportable.

Now if you said, "we may not be as close to USC or UCLA (et. al) as these close games would seem to indicate", then you would have a point that is debatable. But that's not the thesis your trying to support here.
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My basis for the thesis is that we finished last in P12 South our first 3 years in the conference, frequently with blowout losses, and when a bunch of top-25 teams are looking for a break in the intense conference schedule, CU is one of those few opportunities. It's tough (impossible IMO) to maintain maximum intensity for every game. As a new team to P12, there was a cautious period of 'checking out the new guys,' but after several years of Buff failure (not game clips but direct experience blowing us out), that has drifted into viewing the Buff game as a break. That view almost backfired for several teams this year as the Buffs have been pretty consistent at giving it their all, IMO.

I'm admitting this is a thought for discussion, I don't want to defend it as if I know it to be true, just suspicious that coming SO close over and over against some pretty good teams, but never quite breaking through, might have an explanation along these lines (the more talented team brings it at the end when a loss has become a clear and present danger). As mentioned before I have no idea how to directly evaluate intensity, curious how you are able to do so. Certainly if this issue is dismissed there's much Buff improvement. I'll be suspicious until the 'improvement' translates into wins.
 
I think that's a valid point to some extent. I always remove non-conference schedules from year-to-year comparisons. That takes a lot of the fluctuation out of it.

There's also the variable of schedule slot. We didn't get the benefit of too many games where an opponent was looking ahead at their big game, or rivalry game. A lot of folks followed us with Oregon State for example. We also got the toughest teams at home this year in general (Stanford, Oregon, USC, Arizona - although AZ disappointed).

We made huge strides this year defensively. Not so much on the offensive side.
 
Aghcsm - know when your point is invalid. It didn't take 3 years of being the worst in the PAC12 for our opponents to start to relax against us! Seriously illogical.

You evidently are failing to differentiate that we all know that our opponents take it easy against us, just not more easy this year than in any recent year!
 
The longest of journeys starts with just one step. We took our step 3 years ago, but have only added baby steps since then
 
Do we have a "good" win this season? I guess CSU somewhat qualifies.

"Bad" losses? Hawaii and Arizona qualify for me.
 
Our victories are over teams that are a combined 13-31. Just gonna leave that here...
 
buffaholic said:
Aghcsm - know when your point is invalid. It didn't take 3 years of being the worst in the PAC12 for our opponents to start to relax against us! Seriously illogical.

You evidently are failing to differentiate that we all know that our opponents take it easy against us, just not more easy this year than in any recent year!
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Ok, hope the perceived improvements are real. Really want to see more than 4 wins next year.
 
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