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BOULDER – Dressed in all white, college football’s Cinderella took the field in Santa Clara, ready to cement its status as a true contender, the royal ruler of the Pac-12. But there was one problem – the Colorado Buffaloes didn’t show up for their own coronation.
For the last 10 months, the Buffs have been salivating over one name and 60 minutes of football: the Washington Huskies, the Pac-12 Championship game. It was the one that got away. If things had gone differently, if CU hadn’t been rattled at every turn, their story would be immortalized alongside all of the other great fairytales, the ultimate rags-to-riches narrative.
Instead, the Buffs stumbled. And Washington got the sparkly trophy, the championship title and the recognition that has eluded this glass slipperless team from Boulder for so long. Since December 2—when the Buffs failed to show in Santa Clara—they’ve been different.
“We’re gonna bounce back,” senior quarterback and emotional leader Sefo Liufau said after the game. “It sucks, but we’ve always been a team that was able to overcome adversity, and it’s just another one of those times. It just cuts a little deeper this time.”
The sadness in the air that night was palpable. The Buffs made the long trek back to Boulder with shattered expectations and a need to regroup.
“We’re going to take this personally,” quarterback Steven Montez said that night. “Take it like, ‘you know what, we need to learn from that performance. We needed to come out and perform ten times better than we did.’ It puts another chip on our shoulder; it makes us hungrier in the long run.”
The Buffs could have gone into Santa Clara inspired, they could have played angry – like the whole world had doubted them for far too long and they finally had the opportunity to prove everyone wrong. Instead, they watched their dream season fall apart in front of their eyes.
“I can’t really think,” finished then-senior safety Tedric Thompson. “We just lost, and it hurts. I don’t even know how to answer that question. My head’s all messed up.”
Some of the faces have changed since that night in California—Liufau and Thompson among them—but the feeling in Boulder has not. The Buffs still believe they are ready for greatness, and nobody can discount how close they came to college football immortality.
This year could be the year it all comes together. The Buffs host a rematch with the Huskies in their own house. They will step onto Folsom Field Saturday undefeated, with a 3-0 record and the memories of a blowout on a national stage still burning in their guts.
“There’s definitely some revenge in there,” star junior cornerback Isaiah Oliver said. “Having played the way that we did in the Pac-12 Championship game, on national television in front of everyone, we know that we’re better than that and we want to show that out there on the field.”
Last year’s Buffs were truly better than their bout with the Huskies would suggest. It was like watching a different team altogether, one that couldn’t put together an offensive drive despite hanging tight with Michigan and outscoring Oregon. CU could have won that night.
Instead, Washington became the boogeyman – the game that haunts the Buffs and marred their 2016 ‘Rise.’ You can see the shift in their faces, the dip in their voices at the mention of that matchup when the whole world saw them in their worst moment.
“It’s always in the back of our mind because we got embarrassed out there,” senior running back Phil Lindsay said somberly.
That anger, frustration, and desire for redemption could be exactly what pushes Colorado to win this weekend. Washington is a top-ten team – loaded with NFL talent on both sides of the football and looking poised for another dominant run. But the Buffs want it bad; they know exactly what this game means.
“The kids that played in the game last year definitely have to be thinking about that,” head coach Mike MacIntyre said. “If they aren’t, they’re not really competitors.”
This is the matchup that will define the rest of CU’s season. It is the indicator of what they are capable of, the first real test. Another blowout could relegate this team back to the ‘close-but-not-ready-to-play-with-the-big-boys’ category of college football. A win would mean that the Buffs are truly back and ready to contend for a conference title or more.
This is not just another game on the schedule; this is everything. An opportunity for the Buffs to make a public statement, to prove last season was not just a fluke, to confirm this team and this program are not going to fade back into the Pac-12 basement and the ‘easy win’ category for opponents.
The Buffs say they are ready for the next level, they just have to answer the bell. This is it: Welcome To The Rematch.
Credit: Matt Sisneros, BSN Denver
Sam Weaver
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