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The next two weeks will show whether the Colorado Buffaloes football program has truly turned the corner, or if the hot start was merely a tease.
September 15, 2016
The next two weeks will show whether the Colorado Buffaloes football program has truly turned the corner, or if the hot start was merely a tease.
The Colorado Buffaloes have a proud football tradition. They won the 1990 national title; they’ve claimed 26 conference titles; and in 1994, Rashaan Salaam brought the school its first ever Heisman Trophy. The Buffaloes are even home to one of college football’s coolest traditions, where their live Buffalo mascot (Ralphie) leads the team onto the field at home games. But for the last decade, Colorado football has been anything but proud.
The Buffaloes’ last winning season was 2005. Since then, they’ve had four different head coaches, one bowl appearance, and a 35-88 record.
That could all be starting to change. The Buffaloes are off to a 2-0 start – only their second since 2008. In the first two games, Colorado beat its opponents (Colorado State and Idaho State) by a combined score of 100-14.
Led by senior quarterback Sefo Liufau, Colorado ranks second in the Pac-12 in total offense thus far. Liufau is a three-year starter who has set 78 school records. Coming into the season, he was already the school record holder for total passing yards, and the school’s first quarterback to ever have a 3,000 yard passing season. So far this year, his quarterback rating puts him third in the entire Pac-12.
To complement Liufau, junior running back Phillip Lindsay is tied for second in the conference in rushing touchdowns with four through two games.
But the real test of whether the Buffaloes are for real will come in the next two weeks, as they travel to The Big House to face off against Michigan, followed by a trip to Oregon to open conference play.
It’s a brutal stretch, and how the Buffaloes fare – even if they lose these games competitively – will tell us a lot about where they are as a program.
This week’s game in Ann Arbor comes at an interesting time for the Colorado program, as Michigan Stadium is the site of one of the most famous plays in college football history: A game-winning 64-yard Hail Mary from Colorado’s Kordell Stewart to Michael Westbrook, known as the Miracle at Michigan.
After that game, Colorado went on to go 11-1 and win the Fiesta Bowl.
At the time of that 1994 game, both teams were 2-0 and Michigan was ranked No. 4 in the AP Poll. This year, all of that is true again. However, Colorado is facing much longer odds this time around, as they come in 20.5-point underdogs. In 1994, they came in ranked No. 7 in the nation.
Though head coach Mike MacIntyre hasn’t had a ton of success since he took the reins in 2014 (12-27 overall, 2-25 in the Pac-12), it’s important to consider what he’s capable of. At MacIntyre’s only other previous head-coaching job at San Jose State, he coached a 1-12 team in his first season. By his third and final year in San Jose, the Spartans were an 11-2 team that finished the season ranked twenty-first in the country.
Could MacIntyre be on the verge of another impressive turnaround? We’ll find out in the next few weeks.