DENVER — In his fourth year as the head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes, whatever room for error that Mike MacIntyre previously had either shriveled up or disappeared entirely. For many both inside and outside of the program, this season has been viewed as one of no excuses.
Bowl or bust, in the most drastic sense.
With a 44-7 drubbing of Colorado State on Friday night in front of nearly 70,000 fans, MacIntyre calmed any lingering concerns about performance anxiety that might be brought on by such a largely positive offseason.
“It’s just one game,” said MacIntyre. “Our young men know where we’re headed and what we’re doing.”
One of those young men, running back Phillip Lindsay, was the star of the show early on as he scored two touchdowns and accounted for 118 yards from scrimmage.
“We came a long way,” Lindsay said of his team, who would have lost all momentum gained over the offseason had they not put on the kind of performance that they did against Colorado State. “We have what it takes. The things we need to continue working out is just finishing. If we want to win the rest of our games we need to score points.”
Indeed, Lindsay hinted at one of the few troubles experienced by the Buffaloes at Mile High Stadium—fumbles and finishing in the red zone. Perhaps the fumbles were anomalies. Perhaps the red zone issues were due to vanilla play calling once the Buffs had already established order on the field. The answers, as we sit here late Friday night, seem less important than the sheer number of questions that remain despite a historically dominant performance.
No question, of course, is more tempting to deal with than this: Was this year’s Rocky Mountain Showdown an exhibition of Colorado’s resurgence or Colorado State’s incompetence?
“It’s embarrassing. We totally embarrassed our name,” Rams head coach Mike Bobo said. “The number one guy in a leadership role is me and I’ve got to do a better job.”
Quarterback play for CSU was shockingly poor, with 2015 MWC 2nd-team quarterback Nick Stevens looking lost on seemingly every series—he’d finish 6-for-20 with two interceptions and only 31 yards. The Rams’ offensive line, which came into the contest having been excessively praised by MacIntyre, looked slow and weak for much of the night against Colorado’s front seven. Bobo’s team looked ill prepared and disinterested in a fight.
Colorado, on the other hand, might have had a bit to do with that.
“This is the best football team we’ve had since we’ve been here,” said MacIntyre. “I see it everyday and I’ve seen the change. Now we’ve got to see how we handle having a little bit of success early. We’ll see what the guys are made of Monday.”
It’s possible that we may not know what this game truly taught us for three more weeks, as the Buffaloes host Idaho State next week before traveling to Ann Arbor for a date with Michigan, a preseason favorite to reach the College Football Playoff. After that, they travel to Eugene. Knocking off, or even simply competing, with Oregon away from Boulder would be a true indication of this team, this program, being ready for the rigors of Pac-12 football.
“Tasting winning is important,” MacIntyre said. “The thing it can teach them is they can keep doing it and make it back to back to back. I could see it in the kids’ eyes that they weren’t going to back down (against CSU).”
The head coach’s words as he donned a grey suit in front of the media mirrored much of what’s been said around the program since Spring. Throttling Colorado State certainly doesn’t hurt any credibility he, or anyone else, has when spreading the good vibes. But it is when adversity hits—and it will hit, as it does with every team across the country every year—that we’ll learn just how much this win meant for this program.
