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The Ohio transfer road to power football has been a long time coming

The Colorado Buffaloes’ 2024 defensive line corps is packed full of fresh new faces. Coach Prime and his staff honed in on bolstering the defensive trenches via the transfer portal, adding some impressive talent to the group. One particular addition to the D-line sticks out as perhaps the most intriguing: former Ohio defensive tackle Rayyan Buell.

At first glance, Buell is your proto-typical pass rusher. He uses his 6-foot-3, 277-Ibs. build to bulldoze opposing offensive linemen to clog holes and wreak havoc in the offensive backfield. Buell tallied 4.5 sacks and 12.5 tackles for losses in only nine games played with the Ohio Bobcats last season, earning him third-team all-MAC honors in 2023.

The stats and tape from Buell’s time in Athens don’t tell the full story of his eventual landing with the Buffaloes. Buell’s road to playing college football in a power conference has been a long one, and a long time coming.

Coming out of Hornell High School in New York in 2019, Buell originally committed to play with the Rutgers Scarlett Knights in the Big 10. Rutgers never let Buell to see the field in his time with the team, so he made the tough choice to transfer to Northwestern Mississippi Community College.

Moving from a Power Five roster to playing community college ball is a big jump, but Buell excelled given the circumstances. After starting all 12 games of the 2021 season for the Rangers, Buell racked up 32 tackles, a sack and a forced fumble. Buell’s impressive showing at NMCC earned him an opportunity to move back up to the FBS level with the Ohio Bobcats, which he once again made the most of.

In his last year of eligibility, Buell will finally get to play on the biggest stage. The nation’s eyes will be on Boulder and the Buffaloes in 2024, and Buell will be right in the mix of the madness. It’s a perfect full-circle moment for a player who deserves it more than anyone.

With all the newcomers competing for playing time in Colorado’s defensive line, Buell has established himself as one to watch. Most of the Buffs’ D-line transfers are castoffs from other Power Five programs that couldn’t see the field during a game. Buell was once in their shoes, but has taken an unconventional route to work his way back to the top.

Buell now has the reputation of an up-and-coming former Group of Five player who wants to prove he can succeed at the highest level, and that might be exactly what the Buffs need.

Colorado’s most successful transfers so far have been players who moved up to play power football in Boulder, like Xavier Weaver, Jimmy Horn Jr, Cam’Ron Salmon-Craig, and of course the Sanders brothers and Travis Hunter. Coach Prime and his staff have a potential diamond in the rough in Buell, but it’ll be up to them to shape him.

by RylandScholes
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Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

We know the Colorado Buffaloes are must-see TV and two more games were announced for national television last week, both of which in great time slots for CU. After the harrowing and gross game against CSU drew 10 million viewers at midnight ET in 2023, there was no shot that the next game between the two would be in the same time slot. Well, because the Mountain West has the rights to this year’s game, CBS got first pick and put the game in the primetime 7:30 ET time slot in week 3 (September 14) of 2024.

Additionally, in the last week of this season, on Black Friday, CU will play Oklahoma State at 10 AM on ABC, a competitive time slot in one of the biggest weeks of the year. Those two placements are huge wins for CU’s program. Remember 2022, when the Pac-12 Network had almost all rights? Things are different now. Read the whole press release here:

https://cubuffs.com/news/2024/5/30/football-colorado-state-oklahoma-state-game-times-television-set

All in all, CU has four games selected for national television. As you might expect, the rematch against Nebraska is a lynchpin in NBC’s first year of full Big 10 rights, with a 5:30 MT kickoff in week two. Week one will start on August 29 (a Thursday) with a 6 MT kickoff against NDSU (still very nervous about that) on ESPN. It’s a fun time to be a Buff fan.

by Jack Barsch
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Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

Colorado’s debut (ish) season in the new Big 12 is starting to take more shape.

A few weeks after details of the Buffs’ first two games of the season were announced, the first round of season projections and predictions are starting to show up. That includes over at ESPN, where this season’s NCAA RPI numbers were released this week.

(As a quick reminder for any and everyone who doesn’t have time to know that these projections get released in mid-May, RPI is a metric created by ESPN that “is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team’s performance going forward” and “represents how many points above or below average a team is.”)

And considering the Buffs are coming off of a four win season while dealing with another largely-new roster, their debut – at #36 overall – is reason enough to go into the season at least cautiously optimistic. Here are some of ESPN’s other projections:

FPI: 6.0
Projected Win-Loss: 6.3-5.8
6Wins%: 63.2 percent

With that being said, ESPN’s models still don’t think much of the Buffs’ chances next season. They rank 10th among Big12 teams in FPI, and the projections only give CU a 4.1 percent chance of winning the conference (but they do have almost a six percent chance of making the playoffs!).

by camellis
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CU has the game times and networks known for four games - and all four are guaranteed to draw bigger audiences than watched CU play in all of 2022 ... But all of the attention is not always welcome (with Shilo's bankruptcy making national news) ...

Stuart
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Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports

Our favorite son is making us proud.

Derrick White’s bald head continues to shine in the 2024 NBA Playoffs.

The former (and forever) Colorado Buffalo had yet another heroic postseason performance, this time sending the Boston Celtics to the Finals with a go-ahead three-pointer with 45 seconds left to play.


This 2023-24 season has been a dream for the Colorado-born hooper. He established himself as the NBA’s best role player, an elite defender, savvy connector and a more-than-capable scorer. His mid-season hot streak nearly earned him an All-Star nod, was named All-Defense for the second straight year, and is now looking like a legit playoff hero.

White has arguably been the Celtics’ best all-around player in the postseason. He tore apart Miami in that five-game series, disrupted both Donovan Mitchell (when healthy) and Darius Garland, and just averaged a menacing 17 points, 6 assists, 5 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks in their sweep of the Pacers.

The Celtics will likely face the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals, as Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving hold a 3-0 lead on the Minnesota Timberwolves. Boston match up well, as they have both White and Jrue Holiday for Luka and Kyrie, respectively. But that’s easier said than done.

by Sam Metivier
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