BOULDER – “The Pac-12 conference is what these young men wanted to play in. The Pac-12 conference is the level these coaches wanted to coach at. We want to be the best and we want to beat the best… They’ve tasted it now and it tastes sweet, and I know they want to keep tasting it,” Mike MacInyre said following the Colorado Buffaloes 47-6 trouncing of Oregon State.
The MacIntyre led Buffaloes had won two Pac-12 games in his tenure entering this season. Now, it’s four, after beating Oregon and Oregon State in consecutive weeks to start the 2016 conference slate.
“Why did you remind me of that,” the coach joked when asked about it. “We can beat every team we have left, we just have to come and play Colorado Football. That’s what I tell them all the time, ‘play Colorado Football, play Colorado Football,’ and that’s what they’re starting to do.
If “Colorado Football” is playing a full sixty minutes with a mentality that can’t be shook then they are doing what MacIntyre talked about.
The Buffs have been uber impressive thus far in 2016, in each game fans, the team and media have come away with a positive taste about CU. You could say, “they’ve tasted it now and it tastes sweet, and I know they want to keep tasting it.”
That taste is the taste of getting this program from a loser to winner.
If the whipping of Beavers proved anything it’s that the Colorado Buffaloes will not take any game lightly. It knows where it just came from and it’s desperate to not go back. The program is hungry to succeed and desperate not to lose, a scary thought for the rest of the Pac-12 south.
Albeit there was an early by Oregon State score to take a 3-0, the Colorado Buffaloes were pretty much dominate throughout. After their failed first drive the team drove down the field four straight times for touchdowns. The first three of which ended on Steven Montez to Shay Fields hook ups.
“It’s awesome,” Montez said. “I just give Shay a decent ball and he makes highlight reel plays.”
The plays were great and they continued throughout the games including stellar interceptions by Rick Gamboa and Tedric Thompson
But the importance of this game wasn’t in the moments rather it was the moment.
The Buffs lived up to the moment. They didn’t falter in front of the largest crowd of the MacIntyre era, they didn’t quit when hit in the mouth at the start of the game and for the second straight week there were no lapses with their starting quarterback injured.
Most important, the Buffaloes are 4-1, two wins away from ending their bowl drought and there are signs this team could obtain more than just a bowl game. It’s clear the Buffs are back, and what they went through is why they got back.
“What they’ve been through has fortified them as a group of men,” MacIntyre exclaimed. “It has also given them unbelievably depth in character as far as understanding never say die and never give up.”
“I used to tell them all the time when I was recutting all these seniors and redshirt juniors, ‘come on with me but you’re getting in the roll coaster and you’re getting in the rollercoaster on the bottom and when you say you’re coming, I’m gonna lock on you quick because I don’t want you to get out, and when you lock I just want you to stay with me.’ And they’ve stayed with me, and now were up there on that long hill where it goes click click click and we’re going ‘woo’ and I think they want to keep going ‘woo’, so I think we’re gonna keep riding that roller coaster.”
That rollercoaster’s end might just be in Pasadena.
