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Reading too much into Week 1

Buffnik

Buffnik

Real name isn't Nik
Club Member
Junta Member
We do it every year. So do the sports writers.

Last year, CSU was a mess. Especially when they followed their opening loss by losing to a bad Tulsa team.

Last year, Oregon State was terrible after losing to Eastern Washington.

Last year, Auburn was a mediocre team since it took Leach Coug'n it for them to beat Wazzu at home.

Even the early season can be misleading on how the entire season can go.

A few weeks into last year: Miami was back, Georgia was going to have the type of season to get Richt fired, and Texas (which ended up almost winning the Big 12) was a hopeless case.

This post isn't meant to say that a Week 1 performance is irrelevant or that early results don't matter. Just some perspective on how a season makes a season, not one game or one portion of that season. The Buffs in October or November may or may not have any resemblance to the Buffs on August 29th.
 
Agreed. Colorado's season will be a success or failure, depending on how the team adjusts and improves.
 
I agree 100% on the matter of perspective. It's one game against a fired up opponent who did some things we weren't prepared for (like throw out a RB with more talent than anyone else they have had at any position in years.) Every team and every coach has the occasional bad game. This was the first time I can honestly say that this team under M2 has lost a game that it should have won. Based on his reaction after I don't think he is going to let that pass with the team.

On the other hand my Kool-aid is all over my lap and the floor and I do think there is reason to worry.

What worries me is that a team with a beat up MWC quality OL was so effective against our DEs and LBs. It also worries me that our OL wasn't able to dominate a MWC defensive line that was also without some of its best players.

My love and support for the Buffs isn't going to go away but my expectations for 4-5 wins and more competitive losses this season have. I do believe that we are a better team than we were 2 years ago and we will see a much better team on the field eventually but this year could and likely will be another wash out. Unless some things get fixed on that defense fast we are going to see a lot of name the score games again this year.
 
I am waiting to see how we make adjustments (especially in the DLine) and how we play a team that we should beat next week on the road. I think the biggest ray of optimism we need is a home win against Hawa'ii. If we don't beat them, I anticipate low overall attendance at Folsom for the rest of the season :/
 
The problem is, with our schedule, it'll be hard to gain traction. I hope the kids can remain mentally tough enough to focus on improving rather than getting caught up in the record.
 
Bless your heart, Nik, for providing perspective and peddling hope. Your examples are a nice cherry pick of teams that got off slow and turned things around.

I have two observations.
1) While the spin is a good one, why wouldn't your message be delivered by somebody from within the program? Lesson from HaLk #3: Fans can not be in charge of leading the program from the outside.

2) How did the talent levels and strength of schedule of Oregon State, Auburn, Miami, Georgia, and Texas stack up last year compared to CU this year?
 
Things must really be bad.....Nik was ripping into an ignoramus on the Rivals board.
 
What I read into our week (weak?) one performance is this: we are soft.

Hard to come to any other conclusion.
 
Great post, Buffnik. One game doesn't define a season.

Like others, I observed a lack of run blitzing in the 2nd half. You have to think game film will really highlight who was missing their assignment. Sometimes the best lessons are learned the hard way.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
IowaBuffFan said:
Great post, Buffnik. One game doesn't define a season.

Like others, I observed a lack of run blitzing in the 2nd half. You have to think game film will really highlight who was missing their assignment. Sometimes the best lessons are learned the hard way.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Cu has been learning the hard way for years now. Looking at film isn't going to change the talent on this team. Sure it's early and no need to think they cant turn it around. But, better change the mood and results around boulder sooner than later because this is the early stages of hawk2 if not careful.
 
buffsyko said:
Cu has been learning the hard way for years now. Looking at film isn't going to change the talent on this team. Sure it's early and no need to think they cant turn it around. But, better change the mood and results around boulder sooner than later because this is the early stages of hawk2 if not careful.
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Sounds like MacIntyre is most upset about the "run fits". Also, having eyeballs in the wrong place or not properly running the defense that was called. Those are all execution things rather than talent things.

We know we're not going to out-talent the Pac-12, so we damn sure better out-execute. That's tough to do with so many new starters and sophs/frosh getting a lot of snaps, but it needs to happen or this season will be an abortion. Also, if that doesn't happen then we have a coaching problem. Got to be able to coach up what you have.
 
Buffnik said:
Sounds like MacIntyre is most upset about the "run fits". Also, having eyeballs in the wrong place or not properly running the defense that was called. Those are all execution things rather than talent things.

We know we're not going to out-talent the Pac-12, so we damn sure better out-execute. That's tough to do with so many new starters and sophs/frosh getting a lot of snaps, but it needs to happen or this season will be an abortion. Also, if that doesn't happen then we have a coaching problem. Got to be able to coach up what you have.
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I agree on all fronts. It has to be everyone, together saying no more of this. This mediocrity has to stop soon. Also, mac has to recruit better period. Hard to do when your constantly losing.
 
buffsyko said:
I agree on all fronts. It has to be everyone, together saying no more of this. This mediocrity has to stop soon. Also, mac has to recruit better period. Hard to do when your constantly losing.
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I'd be thrilled with mediocrity.
 
Seriously - I love when people say we've been mediocre. No.... we've been bad, straight bad for nearing a decade.

Anyway, time to let Allbuffs cautiously take some more sips of the Kool-Aid... I pray to sweet baby jesus that we don't lose to Mass
 
dio said:
Seriously - I love when people say we've been mediocre. No.... we've been bad, straight bad for nearing a decade.

Anyway, time to let Allbuffs cautiously take some more sips of the Kool-Aid... I pray to sweet baby jesus that we don't lose to Mass
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Worse than bad.....completely embarrassing to the point we are completely irrelevant in most parts of the country.
 
While I agree that you can't read too much into 1 game generally speaking, you also need to look at the situation for each game and the fact of the matter is after we took a 17-7 lead we lost to a mid-level MWC team by getting run over and completely outplayed on both sides of the ball. Over 85% of the posters on this board expected us to go 3-0 in our non-conference games and nearly 100% of the CU fans on this board expected us to beat CSU, as we should have. We all know that the CSU game is one we can't afford to lose in any season yet the team went out and completely under-performed on Friday night. With CU trying to catch up to the rest of the Pac-12 and the college football world in talent the last thing we need to be seeing is an effort that shows lack of emotion, desire, and effort yet that's exactly what we saw on Friday night in a game that has a huge perception attached to it.

What if we lose to UMass or Hawaii, do we write that off as just 1 game too?
 
If we lose to UMass and/or Hawaii, of course you don't write it off as one game, because then you would have more of a trend of poor performances in games we should be winning.
 
sackman said:
What I read into our week (weak?) one performance is this: we are soft.

Hard to come to any other conclusion.
Click to expand...

Say what you will about Sparkles but he took a team that had gone 3-9 three straight years and started last season with two straight losses. By the end of last year, and the schedule certainly helped but wasn't all of it, he had a team that expected to win when they went on the field. They took advantage when WSU coug'ed it in the bowl and they took advantage when we failed to take advantage of our domination and when we had the calls on Crowley and turned the game into a rout.

Skiddy mentions some programs like Oregon State and Miami. Miami has had some ups and downs, they certainly don't have talent right now like they used to have. Oregon State has better talent than a lot of people want to give them credit for but their talent certainly isn't on a level to their winning, they are maximizing the talent they have.

What those programs do have is an identity. Oregon State goes into every game thinking they have a chance and most games expecting to win. Miami still has a lot of that left over from when they were very good.

We had that a long time ago and even had it under Barnett most of the time. Enter Hawkins and away it went. We started finding creative ways to lose (Toledo, Montana State, and of course letting Kansas come all the way back on us. It continued under Embree starting with the Hawaii game and including Sac State and some others. Embrees only win his second season came courtesy of Wazzou which is another school known for finding ways to lose.

If M2 is going to get this thing turned around then somehow he needs to figure out a way to get the players to believe that they at least belong in the game against most of our opponents and to have the confidence that they will win against the ones we should.

That is a hard thing to do playing a PAC schedule but if he can't then we have to find someone who can. I do believe that unlike our past couple of coaches he does understand this. He did it at SJSU, he saw it some other places where he coached. A lot of what he did last season looked like he was trying to make that change.

A game like this one can set that back a long way if he lets it.
 
In the land of blind irrelevance, the one-eyed mediocre team is king.
 
dio said:
Seriously - I love when people say we've been mediocre. No.... we've been bad, straight bad for nearing a decade.

Anyway, time to let Allbuffs cautiously take some more sips of the Kool-Aid... I pray to sweet baby jesus that we don't lose to Mass
Click to expand...


+1
 
There is nothing that Nik says that isn't true, but how many teams also laid a turd in week 1 and never turned it back around again and it was the first sign of a rough season?

I'm not off the bandwagon, I'm not calling for anyone's head, but that was horrible Friday night, and I'm less than optimistic things are going to get wildly better.
 
Highlander said:
There is nothing that Nik says that isn't true, but how many teams also laid a turd in week 1 and never turned it back around again and it was the first sign of a rough season?

I'm not off the bandwagon, I'm not calling for anyone's head, but that was horrible Friday night, and I'm less than optimistic things are going to get wildly better.
Click to expand...

+1

I predicted a 4-5 win season. That was dependent on CU beating teams from non-P5 conferences. CSU, Umass and Hawaii isn't exactly murderers' row. Until I see what happens over the next three weeks, I am now kind of apathetic. If there isn't serious improvement, CU is looking down the barrel of a 2-10 season. Cal, freaking, Cal went on the road and beat a Big Integer team in it's opener. They actually played good D in the fourth when the game was on the line. If what we saw v. CSU is the benchmark, CU will likely go 0-fer in the P12.
 
Here for the post-game discussion as promised. All I can say is I didn't expect this outcome while sitting in the stadium at the end of the 1st quarter. It looked like the same thing I'd seen before - slow start/falling behind/not as good as expected. The connection to Spruce looked good all game and that first bomb was a perfect play. CU was moving the ball relatively easily and consistently at first, hitting the WR screens for some easy yard and then you went over the top. I thought CSU was in for a really long day. I'm not sure how/why this seemed to change in the 2nd half. For CSU the running game wowed, the passing game was bad, and we won despite Grayson being completely ineffective in the first half.

From scanning the topic titles on here I understand CU fans are upset, disappointed, and dejected. Unfortunately, this is the state of CU football right now. If it's any consolation I don't think CSU is much better. Both teams are mediocre MWC teams at the moment. For CSU I guess that's ok, from a CU fan's perspective I can see how that would be disastrous. For CU to flat out expect to win this game every year because they have Pac 12 money is unrealistic, at least for the next couple of years. Treating this game as an easy and surefire win is just setting yourself up for failure.

That being said, I mean what I wrote in my first post on here. I will be a CU fan for the rest of the year and hope you go undefeated. Best of luck.
 
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