New Years Resolutions for the Buffaloes

2018 is finally — finally — in the books. The Colorado Buffaloes did win a national championship in cross country, but for most other sports, we move into 2019 with hopes for things to get better, at least marginally. Here we have five New Year’s resolutions for the football and basketball teams.

1. Wake up after Hawaii

The Buffs may have cost themselves a chance at March Madness by finishing in 7th place in the 8-team Diamond Head Classic. They lost to Indiana State and Hawaii in frustrating games, and they also no-showed at San Diego in an early season loss. Now with the Pac-12 in turmoil, CU needs to wake up, refocus, and figure out how to rise above the trash heap. They’re a talented team that has a lot of unrealized potential, and if they can at least be as good at home as they usually are, they’re in a good spot.

2. Learn to play on the road

The key for CU to go from the middle of the pack towards the top is to take care of business on the road. As I’ll break down tomorrow morning, CU’s schedule is soft on the road. Even the usual road nightmares such as Arizona are winnable thanks to down seasons from just about everyone in the conference. Of CU’s nine away games, only Arizona State and Washington are games they should lose. Otherwise, the Buffs could find themselves on the tournament bubble again if they pick up four or five road wins, assuming they finish around 8-1 at home. Playing on the road is always a struggle for CU, but if they can fix some issues and play with more focus, this resolution isn’t that unlikely.

3. Don’t lose 7 straight games after starting 5-0

Now for the football team, this one is a challenge. For the Buffs to make their second bowl game since 2007, it would sure help to not collapse midseason. Colorado’s schedule is brutal next year as they have maybe one automatic win, a bunch of tough home games, and not one easy away game. They could finish 3-9 or 9-3 and neither would be shocking. The sad thing with the schedule is that CU’s most likely wins are the first five, so the Buffs could realistically start 5-0 and finish 5-7 again. Here’s to hoping they can scrape by with at least 6 wins.

4. Don’t run Laviska Shenault Jr. into the ground

Viska’s ridiculous workload proved to be unsustainable. After seeing 15 touches per game early on, he had a ton of mileage on his legs and took some shots. It may have been a matter of time before he suffered an injury, which he did against USC and had to miss the next month. Shenault is the most gifted offensive player CU has had in the past 20 years, so it’s tempting to give him the ball as much as often, but if they learned any lesson from last season, it’s that you shouldn’t blow a 31-point lead to Oregon State Viska isn’t immortal.

5. Renovate the Folsom Field press box

please it’s so old the wifi barely works and everything is so tight ugh