Colorado's rise and regression in Pac-12 football is not quite comparable to the sudden climb of Utah's baseball program in 2016, considering the Buffaloes won only a Pac-12 South championship that year, not the league title.
Yet a similar phenomenon is in play, with the question becoming whether Colorado ever can return to those one-year heights, or permanently has returned to the bottom of the division. The Buffs finished last in 2017, losing 34-13 to Utah in the regular-season finale with bowl eligibility at stake for each team.
“Yeah, it's a lot more fun to be in first place than down where we were,” coach Mike MacIntyre said last month during the Pac-12 Media Day. “It all goes back to winning the close games. You hear coaches talk about that all the time. We lost a lot of good players the year before and we played some guys that were a little bit younger. We just didn't make quite enough situational plays in those games.”
Colorado could have qualified for a bowl by beating either UCLA (a 27-23 loss) or Arizona (a 45-42 defeat). It's also true that the Buffs were primed for 2016 with a talented, deep senior class and may never get back to the level of personnel.
PAC-12 PREVIEW
This is the ninth installment in a series about Pac-12 football teams in 2018. Today: Colorado.
Thanks to junior Steven Montez, Colorado’s quarterbacking is ranked No. 8 in the Pac-12 by Athlon Sports. But that’s as favorable as the evaluations get in 2018.
The Buffs will open the season Friday vs. Colorado State in Denver. Their other nonconference opponents are Nebraska on the road and New Hampshire at home. The usual regular-season finale vs. Utah moves into a Game 11 slot this season, Nov. 17 in Boulder, because Utah is booked to play BYU on Thanksgiving weekend.
The Buffaloes will succeed if: They overachieve and go 6-6 to make a bowl game, winning four conference games (after presumably losing to Nebraska). That will require a big performance from Montez, who was inconsistent as a junior.
The Buffaloes won’t succeed if: Their personnel performs at the level of the position groups' rankings. Athlon judged Colorado’s offensive line No. 12 in the conference and the running backs, defensive line and linebackers No. 11. That’s a lot to overcome, although the Buffs' schedule gives them a decent chance to win Pac-12 home games vs. UCLA, Arizona State, Oregon State, Washington State and Utah. Of those five teams, only Utah is picked in the top half of its division.
