RSSBot
News Junkie
—
For the Buff Nation, our long nightmare, which was the end of the 2018 season, is finally over
—
On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon resigned as President.
As Nixon’s helicopter left the White House lawn, Vice-President Gerald Ford retreated back into the East Room, where he took the oath of office and became the 38th President of the United States.
Addressing the nation, Ford acknowledged that he was taking office “under extraordinary circumstances” – the Watergate scandal which had led to the first-ever resignation by a sitting President.
“My fellow Americans,” Ford said. “Our long national nightmare is over”.
For Buff fans, the loss to Cal meant that the slow, excruciatingly painful march to 5-7 was finally over.
—
The 33-21 setback against Cal left Colorado with a 5-7 record, ending the Buffs’ 2018 season. The loss, as painful as it was, at least allows the Buff Nation to move on.
Don’t get me wrong. Unlike the Daily Camera’s Pat Rooney, who opined before the Cal game that “the Buffs might very well be better off licking their wounds, heading home, and waiting to find out who their new leader will be”, calling a sixth win and bowl eligibility a “meaningless prize”, I very much wanted the Buffs to defeat the Bears.
I wanted the Buffs to get 15 practices for a bowl game. I wanted the 2018 team, as much criticism as has received, to become just the second team in a decade to go bowling.
I wanted the six-game losing streak to come to an end. I wanted the six-win “glass ceiling” jinx to come to an end at nine games.
But, most of all, I wanted the Buffs to have some momentum heading into the 2019 season.
Instead, every single preseason magazine next spring and every pundit next summer will note that the Buffs will be starting the first season under Coach “X” with a seven-game losing streak. The Buffs will have finished last alone at the bottom of the Pac-12 South for the seventh time in eight seasons in the league.
The Buffs may have started the 2018 season with a 5-0 record and a national ranking, they will say, but they ended the season just being the same ‘ol Buffs.
Yada, yada, yada.
We kind of figured the game against the Bears in Berkeley would end in a loss. After all, the Buffs were coming off of anemic 31-7 and 30-7 losses to Washington State and Utah, had posted six losses in a row, and were 12.5-point underdogs on the road to the 6-4 Bears.
When the Buffs fell behind, 14-0, in the first two minutes of the game, we knew the season was over … It would just take another 58 painful minutes to get there.
I give the Buff players a world of credit for fighting back. The game, and a bowl bid, were seemingly out of reach, but they turned a 21-0 first quarter deficit into a 27-21 game heading into the fourth quarter.
It could have been … perhaps should have been … a 52-7 game (which was the score when the Buffs traveled to Berkeley in 2010). Instead, the Buffs fought deep into the fourth quarter, never giving up on the dream of win No. 6.
“I think those guys really fought hard and they competed for the entire game and tried to battle back in it and gave us a shot,” said interim head coach Kurt Roper. “I just told those guys after the game is we really appreciate all the sacrifices they make for us as coaches to allow us to coach a game and moving forward it’s a great program and it’s going to do nothing but ascend.”
The Buffs willingness to continue the fight, despite a deficit which was 21-0 at the end of the first quarter, gives me some optimism heading into the off-season. This remains a young team, and the next coach will not find the cupboard bare.
Mike MacIntyre took over a dumpster fire of a program in December, 2012.
He does not leave behind a dumpster fire of a program in November, 2018.
That being said, the way the 2018 season ended was disappointing, discouraging, and frustrating … and it’s time to move on.
Our 2018 nightmare is over.
While it has been easy to dwell on CU’s issues over the past two months, it bears noting that the 2019 Buffs do not have a mountain to climb in order to make some noise in the Pac-12 South:
— Arizona opened the season as the No. 31 team in the nation (receiving 28 votes in the Associated Press poll), with a Heisman trophy candidate in quarterback Kahlil Tate. The Wildcats, who fired Rich Rodriguez after going 7-6 last fall, finished the season 5-7, just like Colorado;
— USC opened the season as the No. 15 team in the nation, and the prohibitive favorite to win the Pac-12 South. Instead of a Pac-12 title game berth, the Trojans finished the season 5-7, just like Colorado. The losing record was just the fourth for USC since 1961, and the first missed bowl season since 2000 … and, as of this morning, Clay Helton still has a job;
— UCLA finished the season amidst a great deep of hoopla about a bright future. You heard it here first: Pundits will fail to acknowledge in the 2019 prognostications that the Bruins finished the 2018 season with a 3-9 record;
— So, yes, for those of you scoring at home, four of the six teams in the Pac-12 South are done for the year, failing to qualify for a bowl bid, with Colorado, Arizona, and USC all finishing with 5-7 records.
Then there are CU’s 2019 non-conference opponents. The trio are all also done for the season, posting a combined 2018 record of 12-24:
— Colorado State, who will play the Buffs in the last-ever Mile High version of the Rocky Mountain Showdown next August 31st, finished the season with a 3-9 record, closing the 2018 campaign with a five-game losing streak of its own;
— Nebraska, the Buffs’ 2019 home opener on September 7th, finished the season with a 4-8 record, ahead of only Illinois in the Big Ten West; and
— Air Force, who will face Colorado for the first time since 1974, finished the season with a 5-7 record. The Falcons had four wins over FBS schools this fall – none over a team which finished with better than a 3-9 record.
There are, of course, multiple examples of other teams across the nation which failed to live up to expectations (see: Florida State; Wisconsin, Texas Tech, etc.).
My point is that there are other fan bases who are less than pleased with how the 2018 season came to an end. Arizona fans will be turning over in their sleep for the next nine months, wondering how the Wildcats turned a 40-21 fourth quarter lead into a 41-40 loss to arch-rival Arizona State. USC and Colorado State fans will be left to ponder of the next 270 days how it is that Clay Helton and Mike Bobo are still on their respective team’s payrolls.
At least for Colorado fans, we are able to quickly move on, putting the 2018 season behind us as quickly as possible.
—
A month after he assumed office President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon. The move likely cost Ford the 1976 election, but it spared the nation from a long, drawn-out trial of its former President.
Ford’s move allowed the nation to move on.
Last week, Colorado athletic director Rick George fired Mike MacIntyre. The move was a bold one. George’s predecessor, Mike Bohn, was unable to pull the trigger and fire Dan Hawkins at the end of the 2009 season, leaving the program to tread water in 2010, Hawkins’ lame duck season.
Now, instead of living with the frustration which would have come with the anticipation of yet another losing season under Mike MacIntyre, the Buff Nation can move on. We can now look forward with optimism about the 2019 season and beyond.
Our long nightmare, which was the last seven weeks of the 2018 season … is over.
–
—–
Stuart
Continue reading...
For the Buff Nation, our long nightmare, which was the end of the 2018 season, is finally over
—
On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon resigned as President.
As Nixon’s helicopter left the White House lawn, Vice-President Gerald Ford retreated back into the East Room, where he took the oath of office and became the 38th President of the United States.
Addressing the nation, Ford acknowledged that he was taking office “under extraordinary circumstances” – the Watergate scandal which had led to the first-ever resignation by a sitting President.
“My fellow Americans,” Ford said. “Our long national nightmare is over”.
For Buff fans, the loss to Cal meant that the slow, excruciatingly painful march to 5-7 was finally over.
—
The 33-21 setback against Cal left Colorado with a 5-7 record, ending the Buffs’ 2018 season. The loss, as painful as it was, at least allows the Buff Nation to move on.
Don’t get me wrong. Unlike the Daily Camera’s Pat Rooney, who opined before the Cal game that “the Buffs might very well be better off licking their wounds, heading home, and waiting to find out who their new leader will be”, calling a sixth win and bowl eligibility a “meaningless prize”, I very much wanted the Buffs to defeat the Bears.
I wanted the Buffs to get 15 practices for a bowl game. I wanted the 2018 team, as much criticism as has received, to become just the second team in a decade to go bowling.
I wanted the six-game losing streak to come to an end. I wanted the six-win “glass ceiling” jinx to come to an end at nine games.
But, most of all, I wanted the Buffs to have some momentum heading into the 2019 season.
Instead, every single preseason magazine next spring and every pundit next summer will note that the Buffs will be starting the first season under Coach “X” with a seven-game losing streak. The Buffs will have finished last alone at the bottom of the Pac-12 South for the seventh time in eight seasons in the league.
The Buffs may have started the 2018 season with a 5-0 record and a national ranking, they will say, but they ended the season just being the same ‘ol Buffs.
Yada, yada, yada.
We kind of figured the game against the Bears in Berkeley would end in a loss. After all, the Buffs were coming off of anemic 31-7 and 30-7 losses to Washington State and Utah, had posted six losses in a row, and were 12.5-point underdogs on the road to the 6-4 Bears.
When the Buffs fell behind, 14-0, in the first two minutes of the game, we knew the season was over … It would just take another 58 painful minutes to get there.
I give the Buff players a world of credit for fighting back. The game, and a bowl bid, were seemingly out of reach, but they turned a 21-0 first quarter deficit into a 27-21 game heading into the fourth quarter.
It could have been … perhaps should have been … a 52-7 game (which was the score when the Buffs traveled to Berkeley in 2010). Instead, the Buffs fought deep into the fourth quarter, never giving up on the dream of win No. 6.
“I think those guys really fought hard and they competed for the entire game and tried to battle back in it and gave us a shot,” said interim head coach Kurt Roper. “I just told those guys after the game is we really appreciate all the sacrifices they make for us as coaches to allow us to coach a game and moving forward it’s a great program and it’s going to do nothing but ascend.”
The Buffs willingness to continue the fight, despite a deficit which was 21-0 at the end of the first quarter, gives me some optimism heading into the off-season. This remains a young team, and the next coach will not find the cupboard bare.
Mike MacIntyre took over a dumpster fire of a program in December, 2012.
He does not leave behind a dumpster fire of a program in November, 2018.
That being said, the way the 2018 season ended was disappointing, discouraging, and frustrating … and it’s time to move on.
Our 2018 nightmare is over.
While it has been easy to dwell on CU’s issues over the past two months, it bears noting that the 2019 Buffs do not have a mountain to climb in order to make some noise in the Pac-12 South:
— Arizona opened the season as the No. 31 team in the nation (receiving 28 votes in the Associated Press poll), with a Heisman trophy candidate in quarterback Kahlil Tate. The Wildcats, who fired Rich Rodriguez after going 7-6 last fall, finished the season 5-7, just like Colorado;
— USC opened the season as the No. 15 team in the nation, and the prohibitive favorite to win the Pac-12 South. Instead of a Pac-12 title game berth, the Trojans finished the season 5-7, just like Colorado. The losing record was just the fourth for USC since 1961, and the first missed bowl season since 2000 … and, as of this morning, Clay Helton still has a job;
— UCLA finished the season amidst a great deep of hoopla about a bright future. You heard it here first: Pundits will fail to acknowledge in the 2019 prognostications that the Bruins finished the 2018 season with a 3-9 record;
— So, yes, for those of you scoring at home, four of the six teams in the Pac-12 South are done for the year, failing to qualify for a bowl bid, with Colorado, Arizona, and USC all finishing with 5-7 records.
Then there are CU’s 2019 non-conference opponents. The trio are all also done for the season, posting a combined 2018 record of 12-24:
— Colorado State, who will play the Buffs in the last-ever Mile High version of the Rocky Mountain Showdown next August 31st, finished the season with a 3-9 record, closing the 2018 campaign with a five-game losing streak of its own;
— Nebraska, the Buffs’ 2019 home opener on September 7th, finished the season with a 4-8 record, ahead of only Illinois in the Big Ten West; and
— Air Force, who will face Colorado for the first time since 1974, finished the season with a 5-7 record. The Falcons had four wins over FBS schools this fall – none over a team which finished with better than a 3-9 record.
There are, of course, multiple examples of other teams across the nation which failed to live up to expectations (see: Florida State; Wisconsin, Texas Tech, etc.).
My point is that there are other fan bases who are less than pleased with how the 2018 season came to an end. Arizona fans will be turning over in their sleep for the next nine months, wondering how the Wildcats turned a 40-21 fourth quarter lead into a 41-40 loss to arch-rival Arizona State. USC and Colorado State fans will be left to ponder of the next 270 days how it is that Clay Helton and Mike Bobo are still on their respective team’s payrolls.
At least for Colorado fans, we are able to quickly move on, putting the 2018 season behind us as quickly as possible.
—
A month after he assumed office President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor, Richard Nixon. The move likely cost Ford the 1976 election, but it spared the nation from a long, drawn-out trial of its former President.
Ford’s move allowed the nation to move on.
Last week, Colorado athletic director Rick George fired Mike MacIntyre. The move was a bold one. George’s predecessor, Mike Bohn, was unable to pull the trigger and fire Dan Hawkins at the end of the 2009 season, leaving the program to tread water in 2010, Hawkins’ lame duck season.
Now, instead of living with the frustration which would have come with the anticipation of yet another losing season under Mike MacIntyre, the Buff Nation can move on. We can now look forward with optimism about the 2019 season and beyond.
Our long nightmare, which was the last seven weeks of the 2018 season … is over.
–
—–
Stuart
Continue reading...