Don't let close be good enough

All things considered, the Colorado Buffaloes played pretty well Saturday afternoon.

Sure, they lost, but the Arizona Wildcats aren’t a bad football team. They have multiple offensive playmakers who can score on any given snap; their defense has forced more turnovers than all but five in the entire country.

They’re an average — or maybe even above-average — Pac-12 football team.

And don’t forget; the Buffs weren’t at full-strength.

Star wide receiver Laviska Shenault sat out on his 21st birthday with a strained core muscle.

Mustafa Johnson, maybe Colorado’s most valuable defender, missed the game with a high ankle sprain.

Starting cornerback Chris Miller tore his ACL in the Buffs’ last outing and won’t be back until fall camp.

Starting safety Aaron Maddox has missed a few weeks because of a leg laceration and he’s slated to miss a few more.

Starting guard Colby Pursell didn’t play.

Starting wide receiver K.D. Nixon — the No. 1 offensive option following Shenault’s injury — left the game in the first half and didn’t return.

So did starting safety Mikial Onu, who is the only defender you could argue is more valuable than Johnson.

Tight end Brady Russell left.

Nose guard Jalen Sami left.

There’s probably more.

It’s tough to play without nine starters, but it’s even tougher when you didn’t know half of them wouldn’t be available.

Despite all of this, the Buffs never fell behind by more than a score.

They outgained Arizona. They out-possessed Arizona. They out-ran Arizona. They out-kicked Arizona.

They even won the turnover battle.

There’s a lot to like about how Colorado played on Saturday and there are plenty of reasons to be more hopeful about the Buffaloes’ chances against Oregon next week than you were Saturday morning. The same can be said about the matchups with Washington State, Washington game or Utah game.

If you wanted to, you could even see how Alex Fontenot ran the ball, Dimitri Stanley caught the ball or how Akil Jones blew up the guy who was carrying the ball and say there’s hope for the future.

Somewhere in this loss, there’s a moral victory. Maybe even a moral blowout.

But does it matter?

It used to and it might still.

When a program posts one winning record in 13 years, fans cling to hope. They find hope in coaching changes, in strong performances from young players, in losses by future opponents. Hope becomes a currency as valuable as wins. “Winnable games” is the fluid stat that gauges performance throughout the season.

Top 25 programs don’t use the phrase “winnable games.”

And when Top 25 programs win games, they don’t dwell on the win to justify their belief in themselves in future performances.

When Colorado played Nebraska, they didn’t talk. They didn’t say “Look what we did to them last year,” because they didn’t feel the need to justify themselves. They were confident in their competence. They didn’t believe their belief in themselves needed explanation. They thought it was obvious.

So they didn’t explain, because little brothers justify and big brothers dictate.

That’s the culture shift.

Now the question is whether Mel Tucker can shift the culture fully and, if he does, how long will it take?

You’ll know Colorado’s culture of the 90s and early 00s has returned when wins are no longer converted into hope. A win over a ranked opponent on the road will just be a box checked and moved on from. It isn’t symbolic and carried forward. It isn’t used as validation.

Because it doesn’t matter if a win is a blowout or a loss is close, they all count the same.  Football is a binary game, so you either put the tally in the win column or the loss column.

Colorado is an overtime stop and a blown coverage away from being 5-0.

But don’t let that matter, because that isn’t what happened.

Maybe if Colorado is healthy on Saturday, they beat Arizona handily.

But don’t let that matter, because good teams find a way.

For good teams, losing hurts. So let the loss hurt. Sit in it. Feel it.

Bad programs deflect, self-pity, make excuses and find silver linings. They soften the loss so they can tolerate it. That’s how they cope.

Don’t do that.

Don’t find a way to make it hurt less, find a way to make it hurt worse. Think about the 8 percent of the season that was killed Saturday afternoon. Make this feeling as painful as possible. Make it intolerable.

That’s how you raise the bar.