The Colorado Buffaloes 10-5 win over the Stanford Cardinal this past Saturday may have sealed the deal on their postseason drams but it signified more than just a singular season transition. While the Buffs continue to tout their once-lofty Pac-12 Championship goal, they’re doing so in a new age. With the thought of poor play still on the mind they have been able to take advantage of bounces and show no contrite while willing themselves to victory this season. Rather than deter the Buffaloes, their own former hardships have given them a sense of entitlement.

The Hole

Perhaps the prerogative in the personality of this program is presently best portrayed by how the team perceived their win postgame.

While fans, pundits and community members were satisfied with six wins, and a long-awaited bowl game, the Buffs were having absolutely none of it.

Gilbert to KOA on bowl: It means nothing our goal is Pac-12 Champs.

— Jake Shapiro, but festive 🎁 (@Shapalicious) October 22, 2016

The metaphor that will soon be explained in regards to what Mike MacIntyre was asked from former CU coach Gary Barnett postgame was a fantastic way of putting it. Taking what Jimmie Gilbert said, with the metaphor of “the hole,” would be saying the Buffs have been stuck at the bottom of a well for years. They dug themselves deeper in hopes of finding a way out but only got further from the light. The ladder that they used to climb down had escaped view, but as MacIntyre has advanced in his tenure he has gotten closer and closer to the light and the ladder.

For Gilbert, the bowl game is nothing expect the first step on the ladder. The light for Gilbert and his teammates is Pac-12 Championship game, which seems achievable considering they now own an essential tool in the rest of their climb.

Where this metaphor came from was Barnett on KOA congratulating MacIntyre on helping the Buffs to climb out of the hole. Barnett stopped there, telling MacIntyre that they’re not quite out of that hole that the program had been in for so long. That’s when MacIntyre cut off Barnett:

Mac to KOA: You can get back in that hole, we're not getting back.

There's no way, WE ARE NOT GOING BACK!

— Jake Shapiro, but festive 🎁 (@Shapalicious) October 22, 2016

Bounce

Can we talk about the bounce the Buffs got in the fourth quarter for a second?

What was that?

As someone who has followed Colorado football for over a decade, the Buffaloes haven’t been handed anything since Fifth Down. In fact, the Buffs are the ones normally handing team’s golden opportunities, they’ve even done it twice this year. The only two touchdowns coming from visitors at Folsom Field this season were a direct result of botched balls from the Buffs.

The Buffaloes were bound for a break after so many had gone against them for so long. Sure, they got quite lucky at USC when their quarterback fumbled deep in the red zone taking points off the board for the Trojans. But that was just as much great tackling by the Buffs as it was anything else. In the fourth quarter when quarterback Ryan Burns fumbled a snap straight into the breadbasket of Kenneth Olugbode.

With a first and goal, Stanford was just four yards away from taking a 10-7 lead on the Buffs, it would have been their only offensive competence of the day. Instead, they gift-wrapped Colorado the pigskin and the Buffaloes flipped the field with a booming punt.

The opportunity which Burns and Co. stumbled would be Stanford’s last real one of the game.

When somebody now asks you, “when was the last time the Buffs got a bounce?” You can reply, “dude, that Stanford game.”

Special Teams

Where to start and where to end with this unit…

Every week it’s something new, yet it’s only cost the Buffs once, that being the Michigan game. The display against Stanford was by far their worst performance of the season.

Granted the team was down to their third-string kicker in Chris Graham and Alex Kinney became the fourth player to attempt a field goal. Luckily for the Buffs their place-kickers could’ve gone ofer on the day and they still would’ve won 6-5 but it was bad. The Buffs should’ve won by a count of 19-5.
Could’ve, would’ve should’ve, in this case. Really this was the game the Buffs were going to lose due to poor special team play, but they found a way to steal a road win.

Could the special teams plague Colorado again? For sure, it’s already been detrimental and it’s hard to see where the improvement could come from as now starting kicker and still a freshman Davis Price has mono and Kinney continues to be wildly inconsistent. This week’s inability came on the heels of the poor punt returning performance against ASU. While the offense and defense have clicked, the special teams have slipped.