The PAC-12 South-Colorado

I got a kick out of reading Husker Mike’s June 26th preview of the 2019 Colorado Buffaloes.  In it he mentions that way in the past, when Colorado and Nebraska were rivals, he had come to regard the program “as a classic Warner Brothers’ Roadrunner cartoon, with the Buffaloes playing the role of one Wile E. Coyote.  Every year, [they] would examine their Acme Corporation playbook, and then the rest of college football would watch as the anvil crashed down on top of the Buffaloes.” Whether you knew it or not Colorado has been playing college football since 1890 with the PAC-12 being the seventh conference that they have been affiliated with, the last being the Big-12. 

In the middle of November last year Colorado fired their head coach, Mike MacIntyre, after a six year run.  In that time MacIntyre had one magical season, 2016, in which the Buffaloes had 10 wins, won the PAC-12 South and took Colorado to a bowl after a nine year drought—although losing to Oklahoma State 8-38 in the Alamo Bowl. In a write-up on the firing the Denver Post mentions a number of contributing factors including McIntyre’s 2-20 record versus ranked opponents and other than the 2016 season it’s a pretty ugly record indeed: 30-44 overall and what really did him in, a mere 14-39 in conference with 10 of the 14 coming in 2016 which means in every other year other than that one he averaged just slightly over 1 win a year in conference.  According to the Post one of the straws that broke the camel’s back as they say was MacIntyre’s 0-9 result in games that could have made them bowl eligible was well as his promotion of Joe Tumpkin to Defensive Coordinator for that Alamo Bowl 38-8 beatdown. This being the same Joe Tumpkin who was accused of physically assaulting his ex-girlfriend who filed suit in U. S. District court in September 2017. 

Out with the old, in with the new, and when you walk into Folsom Field this season on the campus of the University of Colorado in Boulder, in that mile high plus air, you might just get a whiff of Georgia peaches.  Early in December of last year Colorado hired Georgia’s Defensive Coordinator, Mel Tucker, as Head Coach of the Buffaloes. Tucker worked in the NFL for about 10 years for the Browns, the Jaguars, and the Chicago Bears before moving into the college ranks, first with Nick Saban at Alabama and then over to Georgia. During his 2015 season with Alabama, where Tucker functioned as Assistant Head Coach and Defensive Backs coach, they won the 2016 College Football Playoff National Championship.  After moving over to Georgia in 2016 to become Defensive Coordinator he elevated their defense to 12th overall nationally in Total Defense and further up to 6th in 2017, right behind the Washington Huskies.

Tucker also brings in Jay Johnson from Georgia who will be the Buffaloes new Offensive Coordinator as well as Quarterbacks Coach. Prior to working at Georgia under Tucker he was Offensive Coordinator at Minnesota as well as the University of Louisiana for five seasons where they were consistently ranked as one of the best offenses in the nation and in 2012 was No. 1 in Red Zone Efficiency having scored 55 times in 58 tries with 44 TD’s and no turnovers, a 94.8 efficiency—as good as it gets. Also from Georgia will be Tyson Summers as the new Defensive Coordinator and Safeties Coach. While in Athens, the Bulldogs won two Southeastern Conference East Division Titles, the 2017 SEC Championship and a College Football Playoff Semifinal to play for the national championship.

Although they are starting at pretty much ground zero at Running Back, Colorado has a few things to be excited about on offense bringing back the one-two punch of returning Senior QB Steven Montaz to WR Laviska Shenault who last year, even with a turf toe injury that finished his season three games early, captured all PAC-12 honors for catching 86 passes for over 1,000 yards and 6 TD’s as well as his 5 TD’s on the ground.  In addition, they bring back depth in their No. 2 and No 3 top pass catchers to the tune of 84 receptions and another 1,000 yards in the air as well as picking up a good TE transfer from Auburn.  The offensive line is expected to improve this year after a season full of injuries in 2018—an improvement they’re going to need. On the Defensive side Colorado’s leading tackler, MLB Nate Landman, returns as well as DL Mustafa Johnson who led the team in sacks and tackles for loss, with 7.5 and 15.5 respectively.  Overall they weren’t too bad last year, ranking 5th in Total Defense for the PAC-12 and in the top half nationally.  However, they will be starting a young group this year with no returning seniors, five second year players, one true freshman, and four juniors.  The most experience they have is on Special Teams with three returning seniors.

This year begins a total overhaul of the Colorado program and with Washington State, Oregon, Stanford, Washington and Utah all on the schedule as well as Arizona State, USC and an emerging UCLA, when all is said and done last year’s overall record of 5-7 is going to be looking pretty good. The Buffaloes start their season off on Friday, August 30th at home against Colorado State hosting Nebraska the next week and then Air Force.  Conference play begins for Colorado on Saturday, September 21st, on the road against what should be a very good Arizona State team.