Thankful

Friends...

'Tis the season for recounting the things for which you are thankful.  I am fortunate to have many.

I am thankful for a loving family who tolerates my Buff obsessions even as they do not generally share them.

I'm thankful to live in Boulder, Colorado.  The totally not reality bubble of a town that's as zany, creative, happy and fit as it is insular and self-absorbed.

I'm thankful for Mike Bohn, the CU Athletic Director.  He's got one of the more difficult situations in Division 1 - a brand name school expected to be always competitive in each major sport but lacking big donors and broad administrative support.  Despite this he's increased the local visibility of the team through such innovations as the Ralphie's Stampede Pearl Street Pep Rallies.  He's also hired two very good mens' Basketball coaches (Tad Boyle being an amazing diamond in the rough) and has our hoops team winning the conference tournament and nationally ranked for the first time since Chauncey.  He was possibly the first D1 AD to truly understand the imminent conference realignment, brilliantly navigating dangerous waters to get the Buffs into a conference that is a huge improvement over the Big XII (which has since become a second tier league).  Sadly, however, Mike has failed on the football front.  But to be fair the Barnett firing and the Hawkins hiring were moves that were broadly lauded as right, even brilliant, moves.  The Embree hiring was risky but sentimentally popular and, frankly, fit within the budget.

And I'm thankful for Jon Embree.  Jon loves CU just as I do.  As a young lad starring at Cherry Creek he could have gone to any school he wished - but he chose to be a Buff.  As an up and coming assistant coach he toiled for years in Boulder teaching young Buffs and keeping the program in the upper tier.  When he had the opportunity to return as head coach, he took a lower salary in order to save budget for his assistants.  He's a Buff through and through.  I love him for this.  And he has worked hard and suffered mightily in his two years at the helm of our once proud program.  His suffering makes my heart hurt.

Thank you, Jon, thank you for giving it a go.  But the experiment is not succeeding.  Aside from a slightly improved running game there is not a single piece of evidence that suggests things are improving.  But sadly there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.   This is the worst season in the long history of Buff football and is probably in the top 10 worst performances in NCAA history.

The CU administration does not seem to have the appetite nor the pocketbook to fire and replace Embree this year - but they should.  This has gone too far and badly affects the CU brand which has far reaching consequences beyond athletics.  It seems silly to imply that a bad football team can drag down a proud academic icon - until you try to name one other well respected non-Ivy league school whose flagship sport is a synonym for failure.

It's time for a change.  Even if the Buffs improbably upset Utah on Friday - and I will be rooting with every fiber of my being for that to happen - it's time for a change.

Thank you, Jon.  You will always be a special Buff.

The Defense Rests

The good news here is that CU's offense re-appeared last week versus Arizona.  The smashmouth style running game featuring Donta Abron and Christina Powell pounded the ball and scored 31points, second most this season.  That fierce offense produced this memorable image.

CPow - helmetless and on his way to the endzone, Baby

The bad news is that the Buffs still lost by 25 points.

You're going into the endzone WITH your helmet?  Lame, bro.

Look, your mom and I didn't tell you this sooner because we thought it would make you super sad.  But the truth is that the entire CU defense died tragically in a bizarre scooter vs. street sweeper accident back in training camp.  Ever since, the team has fielded 11 scarecrows stuffed with Greg Brown's dirty socks, straw and sorrow.

They almost look human

However almost nobody in Colorado noticed because they've spent their fall leveraging the democratic process  - architected by the founding fathers and defended in war by our grandfathers - to legalize weed.



And that, apparently, will be the enduring memory of the autumn of 2012 in Boulder.  That is, if there is any memory at all.

Oh also, Buffs play Washington this weekend.  They also legalized weed.  Birds of a feather...

Raising Arizona

The week in which our confoundedly cursed Buffs play Arizona brings to mind this haunting scene from the great film, Raising Arizona.  This monologue as much as anything describes my own journey from preseason to today.

"I drifted off thinking about happiness, birth and new life.  But now I was haunted by a vision of...

He was horrible.  The lone biker of the Apocalypse."


(Sorry if an ad played before you could see the clip.  Hulu are evidently capitalists.)

"I feared that I myself had unleashed him."

Ah yes, our Buffs play the newly Rich Rodriguez offense-ified Arizona Wildcats.  Yet another brilliant, athletic spread offense for our defenseless defense to face.

"We're super excited to host the Colorado Buffaloes"

I wish I could give you a ray of sunshine here but the more I look at this match up the more I feel our Buffs are bringing a knife to a gun drone fight.

Three more games left, folks.  And then the sweet release of death season's end finally arrives.

Hail to the champs! (of Cross Country)

The Buffs have now won 100% of the Pac12 Men's Cross Country Championships.

One hundred percent.  We are undefeated in Men's cross country.  Here are our boys celebrating their big win this week.

Congrats!  Now, who among you can also tackle?

So buck up, Buffaloes!  The Buffs may not be good at football but we are good at other things like running long distances, physics (high-five Dave Wineland!) and launching freaking ASTRONAUTS into space!

You know who's not good at astronauts?  Stanford.

Unfortunately we are not scheduled to have an astronaut match with Stanford this weekend.  We are instead slated to play them in football - an activity in which they currently excel.

I feel you, Sad Chip

But come on out anyway.  And each time that Stanford scores on our hapless D, point to the sky to remind them that the celestial scoreboard is still very much in our favor, dammit!

Scott Carpenter, bitches