What a day yesterday! The first week had plenty to offer us in what seemed like a rather weak slate of games. All in all, it's just good to have college football back. But now it's the Buffs turn on the center stage, the nation to itself and what a stage to make a statement. A night game at Invesco Field at Mile High against your in-state rival on a beautiful Sunday in August. Could it get any better? Maybe, but if the Buffs come and do what they should, we will have substance to our optimisitic preseason. After watching Alabama last night (and I do not think highly of Nick Saban but the man gets things done), CU needs to listen to the words of Saban because they apply to the Buffs - finish and consistency. We need to see something from the Buffs today that we haven't seen for a while and that is a swagger to finsh teams off. Let's act and look like the better team today while finishing off every play, every block, ever tackle and most important, finish off a weaker opponenet...early. And the Buffs need to be consistent. We can't lose to Kansas State, let me rephrase that, we can't get blown out by a weaker Kansas State team, play a 3 win CSU team to overtime and lose to Iowa State all the while beat Texas Tech and Oklahoma in the same year. Good teams play every weekend, home or on the road. Are we asking too much of the Buffs? I don't believe so. We may be a year away but losing to Iowa State and Kansas State this year would make us say this time next year that "we may be one year away." Play with consistency and finish off the Rams today in style! Make today day 1 of the CU revival! The day we look back on and say, that was the day we knew we would be great.
Did we learn anything about the Big 12 yesterday? Not a lot but their are definitely some comments to be thrown out about a few games.
- Paging Tim Griffin of ESPN, do you now think Mike Sherman is the #7 ranked coach in the Big 12? I have been waiting for my chance to say that but I didn't expect it to be this early in the season. Not only did Texas A&M lose yesterday, they turned the ball over 4 times, gave up 115 more total yards and Arkansas State rushed for 260 yards. In case you didnt know, Arkansas State is in the Sun Belt conference. CU, please don't let this happen today. Let the Aggies wallow in their own misery alone. Wizard of Odds just ranked Arkansas State the 13th worst college football team in the country. CSU was #23 by the way. If you want some amusement today, read the forums on texags.com.
- Missouri looked strong on offense. Is there a better player in college football than Jeremy Maclin? I know, argue below but last night he was the best player to play yesterday. I think he will be fine after suffering a left ankle sprain. It will be hard for the Buffs to keep up but the Tigers secondary looked porous making the inconsistent Juice Williams look like a world beater. They just let Illinois receivers run right by them. That alone makes them vunerable against Oklahoma and Texas Tech in a potential Big 12 championship game.
- Texas Tech fans were worried going into the fourth quarter only up 11 points and giving up 300+ yards through the air to CU's next opponent, Eastern Washington, a FCS school. But EWU is no joke and they could be a tougher challenge to the Buffs next week than CSU is today, especially with our cornerback issues. Next week has me worried after seeing the stats they put up against Tech. I guess Harrell was inconsistent and the defense was not the powerful new defense that we heard about all spring.
- It is hard to really be impressed when you can't watch the games on TV but from what I have read and heard, Joey Ganz and the Huskers played well yesterday. Western Michigan scored some points but it was after the Huskers dominated early. Vegas had the game at a 14 point spread and they won by 23 with Ganz throwing for 345 but Marlon Lucky didn't get going. Oklahoma State looked impressive but Wazzu is horrible so that is a wait and see team as well as the self proclaimed best Big 12 quarterback Josh Freeman's Kansas State Wildcats as they roughed up North Texas. All the other Big 12 teams won convincingly except Baylor but the wins were against the who's who of directional universities.
Like I said earlier this week, I will be at the game today and Woodrow will be in Vegas but we will have the Live Game Thread up so if you are sitting at home watching the game, fire up the laptop and fill the board with comments about the game. I will be contributing via iphone so don't expect perfect grammar but I will be there. Go Buffs! Shoulder to Shoulder!