CU Buffs held a players-only meeting on Sunday

After returning home to Boulder at 4:30 AM on Sunday morning, Colorado players had the day off from practice, but the players still joined together, without their coaches, to try and rally.

Running back Phillip Lindsay referenced the meeting when answering a question to BSN Denver about why he believed the Buffs would right the ship this week.

“We had a team meeting with no coaches or anything,” he explained. “We were able to go in there and just get things off of our chest, go in there and get on the right page with each other because at the end of the day we are brothers, we are family. We need to know what’s going on with everybody, we need to know everybody’s opinion on things, we need to know so we can get back on the right foot, so we can go into this next game clear minded and ready to play.”

There are mixed feelings on players-only meetings, but one thing is for sure, you rarely hear about them taking place when things are going well.

We spoke with a former player, who played under MacIntyre, to get his feelings on the meetings which he said took place once or twice a year while he was there.

“I mean, it’s never ever a good thing when there’s a players-only meeting,” he told BSN Denver. “Usually that’s just kind of rock bottom, trying to salvage something.”

“Players-only meetings were usually an effort to rally enthusiasm within the players, but you have to have that fire within yourself,” he added.

Asked if he ever saw benefits of the meetings, the former player said the results were mixed.

“Some of our players-only meetings guys went off on tangents which wasn’t good,” he told. “I think if you keep the meetings short and truly just try to get a little excitement going it can be good, but it only lasts so long.”

He did add that if anyone could run a meeting like that in a positive way, it would be Lindsay – “From that perspective, I think it’s a good thing, he’s a guy with a ton of fire, which is what makes him good.”

If nothing else, you can say the Buffs are desperate to right this ship before the wheels really come off, and they definitely understand how big it is for that to happen this week.