The Rise of Colorado Football is about the journey, not the destination

SANTA CLARA – What goes up must come down.

On a chilly Friday night in Northern California, Colorado’s rise finally reached its plateau.

The 41-10 drubbing at the hands of the superiorly-talented Washington Huskies is heartbreaking in many ways for the Black & Gold. The Buffaloes will not be heading to College Football Playoff and their hopes of playing their bowl game in the 2017 calendar year likely died as the Huskies ran up a 31-point margin of victory.

Colorado’s historic, magical, shocking, inspiring season won’t end with roses and floats in sunny Southern California, but likely with cacti and oil barrels in balmy San Antonio.

Yes, the Valero Alamo Bowl appears to be the likely destination for the Buffaloes. It’s game played on Dec. 29th, it’s a game played in a dome, it’s a game played in San Antonio, Texas for goodness sakes. There is absolutely nothing glamorous about playing in the Valero Alamo Bowl.

In normal cases, that is.

You see, outside of the College Football Playoff, the Alamo Bowl is the second-best bowl available to Pac-12 teams. This is the Colorado Buffaloes football team that was voted to finish last in the Pac-12 South division. The Colorado Buffaloes that were picked by numerous prognosticators to win three games on the season. Friday night, in December, the Buffaloes suffered just their third loss of the entire season. A trip to the Alamo Bowl is as glamourous as Beyonce.

A momentary fall in Santa Clara takes nothing away from “The Rise” that these men worked so hard to build.

“What these young men have done for the University of Colorado is amazing,” head coach Mike MacIntrye said after the game. ” I could not be more proud of them. Yeah, we hurt. We lost… But, you know, first time in 101 years of Pac-10, Pac-12 football, biggest turnaround ever. One of four teams to go from worst to first, 1959 was the last one. Seventh ten-win season in school history and if we win the bowl game, I think there are maybe three or four others that have [won 11 games]. Pretty impressive. First sellout since 2008 in our last home game. These guys brought Folsom’s magic back, these young men.”

Nobody can take any of that away from the Colorado Buffaloes, under any circumstances. The team that walked off that field licking their wounds on Friday, tears in the eyes of many, will not be remembered for a beatdown in Northern California. They will be remembered as the team that brought back Colorado Football, as hard as that may be for them to realize right now.

“I can feel it,” quarterback Sefo Liufau said of the perspective MacIntyre tried to remind them of in the locker room. “I’m not the best at it. I really wear my emotions on my sleeve. Just very frustrated. But I can see where he’s coming from; I believe in what he said. But at this time it’s just, I’m just very frustrated with myself and how I played for these guys tonight.”

“I can’t really, it’s hard right now,” chimed in linebacker Addison Gilliam. “The way that whole game went was just really disappointing, the way we got beat was just really disappointing, I don’t know how to put it… Right now it just sucks, a lot.”

“I can’t really think,” finished Tedric Thompson. “We just lost, and it hurts. I don’t even know how to answer that question. My head’s all messed up.”

That feeling expressed by those players is being felt in the hearts of many Colorado fans after that game. Frustration, pain, heartbreak, that’s the way it feels when a team you care about fails. Just be glad you care that way again. Be glad to know that hundreds of thousands of other people are sharing that pain with you.

“They’ve kind of reunited BuffNation,” MacIntyre said. “We can’t say enough about how far they’ve come.”

Just barely over three months ago today, you walked into Mile High Stadium hoping, praying that your team could handle a mediocre Colorado State squad. On that night, if offered a 6-6 record and a trip to the Las Vegas Bowl, just about anyone would have signed on the dotted line without hesitation.

The Colorado Buffaloes got their teeth kicked in on Friday night, their storybook ending put to flames like a bible belt copy of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ but it’s not always the ending that makes a great story.

In the words of the great Arthur Ashe, “Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.”