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The Colorado Buffaloes’ 38-24 victory over the Washington State Cougars was more than just the average win. The triumph which equated to the school’s ninth on the year, a mark that has only been reached 14 times in program history.
The Buffs did a bunch of things that hadn’t been done since 2002 or earlier on Saturday. All those feats are valid but what is more remarkable is what CU has done in just one year.
Reconnection
When prompted about the rocking Folsom Field crowd of 48,658 raucous fans, Mike MacIntyre had more than praise.
“I thought it was great,” he described the gathering. “I know it’s hard for some of the kids, they’ve got to go home for Thanksgiving break. But I imagine some of them will be getting some earlier flights back for next Saturday. I’m excited about seeing the place overflowing. It was exciting, it was a great atmosphere. It was really loud in there, it was a lot of fun. It’s fun to see that with our young men to know they’ve done that. They brought people back out. They kind of reconnected the state of Colorado with their team, the University of Colorado. It’s really special.”
Think about that.
The Buffs have reconnected the state of Colorado with their team.
In one year.
They went from four wins last year, 10 total in the MacIntyre era, to nine in a single season. They went from struggling to draw 40,000 to almost drawing 50,000. They went from Pac-12 Mountain to network TV.
They did all of this and more in a single year.
The No. 9 AP Poll ranking is extraordinary, any season that you land yourself in the top 10 is. But what CU has done for Buff Nation in just 11 games is folklore.
“It’s really special.”
“It was fun. At the end, everyone was rushing the field and I had to just take a step back and let it all sink in. I have one more game here at Folsom next week and the atmosphere is just phenomenal.” – Alex Kelley
“It was wonderful, you hear all those people yelling and screaming on third downs, fourth downs, we didn’t get off the field as much as I’d like to, but hearing them gave us a lot of motivation to stop the other team. That’s been huge for us this year, our crowds been showing out, we’ve been having a full crowd every time, and if that keeps going the sky is the limit, because they don’t understand how much of a factor they are, but we definitely feel them when they’re loud.” – Chidobe Awuzie
“It’s been a long time for the University of Colorado to have that done. For all of the men that have sweat and bled and cried on the field from back in the day to now, we have to keep it going. We have to keep the legacy going.” – Phil Lindsay
Run Game
All good football teams play defense and establish the run. While most week’s this feature focuses on the defense, which once again came through, it’s time to give the running game its due. It wasn’t just Lindsay, Sefo Liufau legs were relied upon heavy too.
“It all depends on the game,” the three-year captain Liufau said. “The QB runs were in the game plan, but depending on what the other team struggles with, we’ll try and run those plays a little bit more. That’s kind of what we did down in the red zone. They were having a hard time with the zone read, so we just kept running it.”
Liufau gained 108 yards on 23 rushes, highlighted by three touchdowns, his bruising style was a difference maker for the Buffs.
But Lindsay establishment of that facet of the game is what set everything else up.
“Our offensive line got rumbling, got on top of the defensive linemen,” Lindsay lamented. “As a running back, you have to find the holes and make people miss. When your receivers are assigned to catch, Devin Ross and Jay MacIntyre came up really big. Sefo is like a train and is doing his thing, it really helps.”
Lindsay pushed his way to 144 yards in 31 carries. He became the first 1,000-yard rusher since Rodney “Speedy” Stewart had 1,318 in 2010.
“Our offensive line is doing a great job, Coach Hagan has a lot to do with it,” he said on the night he joined Hagan as one of 19 players to rush for 2,000 career yards over their Colorado career. “That man has put a lot of work into our running back crew and he’s taken us to another level. I appreciated that and I want to thank Coach Hagan for that.”
Utah
The Utah Utes lost to the Oregon Ducks this past weekend. The game took away a potential Pac-12 South Title Game between the Utes and Buffs. Now, CU wins the title with a win or USC will win with a CU win.
Still, the Rumble in the Rockies is expected to be hard-fought as Colorado spoiled Utah’s title hopes in 2011.
“We’ve accomplished a lot this season but one thing we haven’t done yet is beat a ranked opponent, so that was a really big personal goal, and defensive goal,” Awuzie said. We talked about it and let it be known, now we’ve got a gold brick on the wall. That’s definitely something we wanted to do to secure a legacy here. That’s pretty much all I was thinking about. It was great to see the fans get excited, we just try to stay level-headed on our team, because we know that our dreams could be gone in a second if we don’t beat Utah. It’s definitely on to the next one and we’ve got to battle and prepare really hard this week.”
It will all come down to Colorado on their home turf post-thanksgiving to decide a title, sound familiar?
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And we’ll be wearing the same uniforms that we wore when we demolished the corn in 2001. All too familiar.