This actually sounds worse than I thought it would.[emoji15]
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How worried are you about the Hawaii game?
- Thread starter Buffnik
- Start date
This actually sounds worse than I thought it would.[emoji15]
DeNiro
My Dixie Wrecked
But you forget Norm Chow is still the HC.
And outside of those key additions mentioned their roster is still the same guys they have had in past years.
To me the game is scary because it is a road game and an opener for a team that hasn't learned to win on the road and has had trouble getting their act together in openers. If our heads aren't right Hawaii has enough talent to embarrass us but if we show up and play a decent game our overall talent should give us a comfortable but not easy win.
They do? Not sure I believe that. Hawaii's wins under Chow...
2012: Lamar (FCS, 54-2), UNLV (48-10), South Alabama (23-7)
2013: Army (49-42)
2014: Northern Iowa (FCS, 27-24), Wyoming (38-28), SJSU (13-0), UNLV (37-35)
To be fair...
CU's wins under MM:
2013: CSU (41-27), Central Arkansas (FCS 38-24), Charleston Southern (FCS 43-10), Cal (41-24)
2014: UMass (41-38), Hawaii (21-12)
With that said, I don't think Hawaii has the talent to embarrass us, as in blow us out on the scoreboard (although, losing to Hawaii in any fashion should be embarrassing to CU), but they do have the talent to beat us, especially in Hawaii.
My biggest issue with this is that they've come pretty close against some teams that are better than we are.
And we've come pretty close against multiple teams that far better than they are.
Ipso facto. Vis a vis.
DeNiro
My Dixie Wrecked
So your saying our loses are better than theirs?
Just countering the previous statement that their losses have been close to teams better than CU.
I thought moral victories counted this year?
DeNiro
My Dixie Wrecked
They just made us feel better.
I think those are called morale victories.
I am very hopeful that we turn the corner this season and go bowling. That said, at this point it is still just hope. We have many question marks (though there seem to be potentially good answers out there, i.e. Sefo cuts down on ints, Gillam back to full strength, DL help, Leavitt and Tumkin influence, OL depth etc.). The first game of the season is always a question on how the team is going to come out. Hawaii plays tough at home and likely views this game as winnable. This game could go either way. If CU wins, it is a good sign Mac and the staff can coach.
Sure we have question marks, but so does Hawaii. And there's are much bigger than ours. Not sure why that always gets ignored.
tini
Nobody is ignoring the question marks that Hawaii has, they sucked last year and they are going to suck this year.
Playing a team that sucks on the road though is far from a gimmee for this Buffs team. We barely beat a UMASS team last year on the road in a stadium that was more Buffs fans than UMASS fans. Hawaii is going to be a much more hostile environment.
We should beat Hawaii, we should beat them soundly. Fact is that we only beat them by 8 last year at home and they are a much better home team than road team, we are a worse road team than home team.
If they didn't have question marks we would already be marking this one as a loss like we did going into Columbus a couple years back to play Ohio State, the only question was how bad.
When we prove we can win road games against inferior opponents then we can start counting wins before the game is played but until then regardless of their question marks our question marks are reason to have real concern.
I understand that, but it has been common to see posters (not naming anyone at all, just a general observation) where they talk about our question marks, but don't really mention the other sides in the analysis. For Hawaii, they have a new OC, new DC, new QB, pretty much a new OL and DL, among others. That for the most part has been missed in this thread, and many others. We aren't the only team with question marks, and if that is going to be brought up, both sides should be analyzed with their question marks as well is all I'm saying.
CU won by 9
Under HCMM, what road game against an inferior opponent that we should have won did we end up losing? In my estimation, the only game that qualifies for that was the UMass game last year and CU did, in fact, win. Maybe throw in CSU from last year, although were they really an inferior team in hindsight? Point is, this CU team under HCMM hasn't really lost to truly inferior opponents on the road (mostly because they haven't really played any), so having optimism about a game on the road against an inferior team isn't all that misguided.
They haven't really lost to anyone they shouldn't have at this point. CSU in 2014 is the only example that I can really come up with. People weren't expecting us to beat OSU, Cal, UW, Utah, or UCLA last year either, not I'm not sure if you can count those guys.
Correct. They beat CSU, Central Arkansas and Charleston Southern in Mac's first year and those were probably the only 3 games there weren't double digit dogs in. Then last year, they lost to CSU, when favored by 3 I think, and beat UMass. But in hindsight, was CSU really an inferior team to us last year?
We should have won that game. Period. We should always win that game. The team had everything it needed to beat CSU last year except the mental capacity to respond to adversity. That was on the coaching staff and more specifically it was on Baer and the defense.
How many teams have we played that are inferior? That's more of an indictment of the state of the program than qualifying how good our opponents are.
Luckily a lot of this posturing will be concluded in a few months. A lot of people are in show me mode. CU hasn't shown life on the road, even under MM. "Close" isn't good enough anymore for a lot of people that have invested a lot of time, energy and money into the program. Things are wearing thin and we are as bottom of a barrel P5 team close to KSU was before Synder. People only talk about our question marks because we aren't studying Hawaii or are fans of the program.
Luckily a lot of this posturing will be concluded in a few months. A lot of people are in show me mode. CU hasn't shown life on the road, even under MM. "Close" isn't good enough anymore for a lot of people that have invested a lot of time, energy and money into the program. Things are wearing thin and we are as bottom of a barrel P5 team close to KSU was before Synder. People only talk about our question marks because we aren't studying Hawaii or are fans of the program.
How would you define showing life on the road?
DeNiro
My Dixie Wrecked
Winning consistently.
But few teams consistently win on the road. Teams who consistently win on the road are normally very good teams.
Correct. Which is why people should be very worried about this game.
And this is the whole issue.
I want us to beat Hawaii, we should beat Hawaii, those are the expectations.
Until we do finally start beating teams like Hawaii on the road though it is completely reasonable to question if they will. This isn't just M2 era this goes back through JE and Hawk.
If the team doesn't want to be questioned against lower quality teams on the road show that winning should be expected by winning some. Until then it's fine to be an optimist but we are still waiting for proof.
At this point winning 15% of on the road conference games would be a BIG step forward.