Buff Notes:

As the lucky Colo"rad"o t-shirt looks to make it 4 for 4 this weekend, here are some thoughts from last week's game against Baylor and tomorrow's big game against K-State: - First of all, how retarded is the Big 12 TV contract? It is so unbelievably stupid that the local channels weren't allowed to pick up last week's game against Baylor. Sure it seems disappointing at first, but look at some of the other games we were able to watch: - KU vs. KSU (on Fox Sports Rocky Mtn) - ASU vs. Washington St. (on Fox Sports Rocky Mtn.) - West Virginia vs. Syracuse (on Altitude) - Northern Colorado vs. Idaho St. (on Altitude) - Florida A&M vs. Winston-Salem St. - Youngstown St. vs. Southern Illinois. - Illinois St. vs. Missouri St. - Wisconsin (Eau Claire) vs. Wisconsin (Whitewater) Thank God I had the ability to watch all of those games instead of our state's flagship University as they are turning the program back around.... - Against Baylor we played sloppy. Really sloppy. It was painful to watch... er, listen to Don Zimmer tell me about it looking sloppy. Anyway, it was pretty refreshing to have a CU team play poorly and still win easily. I wasn't too fired up about not completely finishing them off, but a 20 point road win when you don't play well isn't exactly a bad thing. - Tomorrow's game against K-State is huge. In fact, I'm going to give it the old "biggest game of the year so far" label. Which is the same label I've given to approximately every game of the season. But here's the deal, we are currently 2nd in the "others receiving votes" category of the Top 25. With a road win against a formerly ranked team who beat Texas two weeks ago, we have a good shot of jumping into the top 25 next week. Especially with the Florida St. loss last night. Who could have imagined that at the start of the season? Not to mention the fact that it gives us control of our own destiny for the Big 12 North. - I have a few friends who still argue that Gary Barnett was unfairly criticized while winning, and Dan Hawkins has been given a free pass, and even praised, while going 2-10 last season... but I don't think that anyone can say that we aren't better off right now than we were two years ago. I know that we were 4-2 at this same time back then (in fact, we were 7-2 until the nightmare letdown ending in the 70-3 ass shellacking in the Big 12 title game), but it feels like the program has a much brighter future than it did two years ago. - Ryan Miller is getting the start at RT tomorrow against K-State. (Columbine HS football rules!!) How crazy is it that we have two pure freshman starting on our O-Line and we are better off for it! This says a lot about the future of the program, especially on offense. We are loaded with freshman talent that will hopefully give us a few years of exciting football and be the building blocks of us finally bringing back that "return to dominance" we heard so much about several years ago. - The OU win isn't quite having the recruiting fallout that I had hoped it would produce yet. Although we did sign Boulder HS LB/TE Will Pericak, no other recruits in town that weekend made a commitment to the Buffs. That's not to say that it won't have a positive effect down the road though. Pretty much every recruit in town that weekend came away very impressed with the program. A win like that on national TV shows all recruits that the program is headed in the right direction, hopefully wipes out the Montana St. negative recruiting angle finally, and let's not forget that Jon Major was there watching the game with his final 3 down to CU, OU, and Wisconsin according to most reports. - At least the OU win impact worked for someone though. The basketball team signed 6'8" Toby Veal from Savannah, GA, the #39 ranked PF in the nation. Veal was visiting during the OU game and chose CU over programs like Tennessee, Auburn, Virginia Tech, Miami (FL), Florida St, UNLV, and CSU. He also cited Coach Bzdelik's NBA experience as a reason for signing. Prediction: The homer in me thinks that the Buffs should kill K-State. There's no logical reason behind this, it's just my homerdome coming to the forefront. The realistic part of me knows that this will be an extremely tough game, and a few things have me worried. Actually, it's really only one thing... defending the pass. Outside of the OU game we haven't exactly shown an ability to slow down passing teams too well, and a team that throws the ball as effectively as K-State could potentially have a field day against us. Usually I feel comfortable with Terrence Wheatley matched up against anyone, but the FSU game showed that he has trouble with bigger receivers, and KSU has Jordy Nelson who at 6'3" has a good half a foot on T-Wheat. Nelson already has 52 catches for 634 yards in only 5 games this season. Maybe we could try matching up the bigger 6'2" Jimmy Smith on him, but he's a pure frosh and I'm a little worried that he has too much Phil Jackson in him, and I don't want to see him 5 yards behind his man trying desperately to catch him from behind on his 2nd 50+ yard TD of the day. So we need to just line up our best guy against theirs and hope he can slow him down. With that said, I think CU wins this one in a close game. We have shown improvement each week as the young players gain experience, and this is too important of a game to let it get away from us. CU 27 - KSU 24. The Colo"rad"o shirt pulls through again.

Colo"rad"o

There are quite a few theories out there about the turnaround taking place with the football program up in Boulder. Some people think that Coach Hawkins has infused his players with his will to win. Others think that the outstanding play of our young freshman, and their continuous development is the reason. Some think that it is due to our staunch defense and their ability to shut down some of the most high powered offenses in the nation. But they're all wrong. It's because of me. In an unprecedented stroke of fan genius, I made a switch two weeks ago that has turned the tables of fortune for our beloved Buffs, and shocked an entire nation in the process. You see, for the past few years I have worn the same type of gear to basically every Buff football game. I'd either wear a white CU golf shirt, or maybe the occasional yellow Buff T. As we all know, this gear combo has not worked well for the mighty Buffaloes during this time stretch. So when heading up to the Miami (OH) game two weekends ago I had an epiphany. I was going to change things up for the Buffs for good with just a simple audible in game gear. Here's what I wore that fateful September day: On the way to Boulder with longtime Homer Wade, I told him of my plan. I informed him that I was taking things up a notch, that I would no longer sit idly by watching our Buffs lose while I did nothing to help institute change. It was time to be pro-active.... I was wearing a new t-shirt. Wade simply nodded, looked my shirt up and down and stated, "we're ready." He then sniffed the autumn sky and said, "there's a change in the air." Wade is a very wise man. That day things just clicked for the Buffs. For the first time in years, we thoroughly dominated an opponent, racking up 634 yards of total offense while shutting out the Red Hawks and holding them only 139 yards during the game. Granted, the "Red Hawks" sound like the name of a Pee Wee league football team, and maybe that day they were, but the Buffs had dominated an opponent and the only thing that had changed, that I could tell, was my choice of game day garb. Then this Saturday arrived, #3 ranked Oklahoma was coming to town and I knew I had to pull out all stops in order to keep this crazy stroke of genius going. I woke up early and made sure my Colo"rad"o shirt was freshly cleaned. It was. I had thrown it in a pile on the ground the night before, so it was pretty wrinkled, but I wasn't worried. This is no ordinary shirt.... it's pure cotton. 100%. And not that wuss cotton gently weaved by the hands of tiny Korean children, but pure 100% American cotton... made in America. Colorado is in America. This shirt is Colorado. I give this newfound harbourer of change a once-over, then I pull the shirt on and head out to watch the game. I'm watching this one with my family, nearly all of whom are Oklahoma graduates. Needless to say, none of them are intelligent and they cheat constantly at everything.... but that's neither here nor there. Shortly after halftime, with our Buffs down 24-7 and seemingly headed for yet another embarrassing loss to a top 5 team, I took a good look at my t-shirt and said to it, "come on shirt! Do you really put the "rad" in Colorado? Or is that all just a bunch of talk??" The response was immediate. The Buffs started to completely decimate the Sooners. Running the ball at will, getting key 3rd and 4th down conversions, forcing turnovers, and pulling off the upset. After the game I could be seen running throughout my mother's house, yelling to all who listened that I knew I could do it. I knew I could find the lucky shirt to turn the Buffs fortunes around. Needless to say I've found my new game day shirt. And it makes everything "rad". I still haven't heard from Coach Hawkins though. I was expecting a thank you call or something. Maybe he's not getting cell service right now. Go Buffs!