What's your pain threshold?

[Buffskier]

I have been going to games since I was a baby and the pain of getting slaughtered sucks ass. I got to see the highs of Rashaan Salaam hitting 2,000 and will hopefully see P.Rich break the record for receiving yards this weekend. I was on the field after OU and WVU and was there for 62-36. I have been in the stands for gutwrenching losses to Fresno st in 05, Baylor in OT in 06?, CSU in Folsom in 09, etc. etc. etc.. Last year I conscientiously made the decision to work on Saturdays and I could not for financial reasons rationally buy season tickets (let alone convince the fiancée) which showed me how much apathy had built up. Every year I get hopeful, every year I get excited, and for the last 8, my hopes and dreams get SH** on every Saturday. It's tiring and on those days where we get beat by 52, its embarrassing to wear Buffs gear out in public. I am ripe for the picking to be brought back to the fold, but god damn its hard being a fan of the Buffs on Saturdays (and the following Sundays) right now.

 

[JWP303]

A little off topic, but it's worth stating how badly Klatt, Alfred Williams, Coach Mac and Co. hurt the program last year out of selfish, misguided loyalty to Embree. I feel like they took a blow torch to the program. I have so much bitterness and borderline hatred for some once beloved Buffs. That's not the reason I am apathetic, but I think the overall dysfunction contributed to my apathy.

I wouldn't have even been able to cheer for McCartney if I would have attended his ceremony this year. That's sad. This program stinks.

 

[unionbuff]

“We didn't break it,” MacIntyre said. “We're here to fix it, and we're fixing it. And we'll keep working to fix it and we'll keep going forward and we'll keep having the right attitude and the right positiveness. It does not get fixed overnight with a magic wand. It does not."


Just want to leave those words here. I understand where all of you are coming from who say you are at a breaking point. I get it. CU football is depressing right now. But if you truly feel like Mac & Rick George were good hires, I don't know how you can abandon ship right now. I think the higher ups have taken huge strides just in the past few months to show that they are all in. I get that just a few short years ago, they had a chance to make some moves that may have kept us out of the depths to which we have fallen, but changes have been made.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just too hopeful that we'll see improvements anytime soon. But like someone said, I can't change where I went to school, I can't change the passion I have for the program. My life is completely different than it was when I first got season tickets and I'm still fighting tooth & nail every week to get up to Boulder to tailgate or even to see a quarter of football at Folsom.

 

[chipwich]

“We didn't break it,” MacIntyre said. “We're here to fix it, and we're fixing it. And we'll keep working to fix it and we'll keep going forward and we'll keep having the right attitude and the right positiveness. It does not get fixed overnight with a magic wand. It does not."


Just want to leave those words here. I understand where all of you are coming from who say you are at a breaking point. I get it. CU football is depressing right now. But if you truly feel like Mac & Rick George were good hires, I don't know how you can abandon ship right now. I think the higher ups have taken huge strides just in the past few months to show that they are all in. I get that just a few short years ago, they had a chance to make some moves that may have kept us out of the depths to which we have fallen, but changes have been made.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just too hopeful that we'll see improvements anytime soon. But like someone said, I can't change where I went to school, I can't change the passion I have for the program. My life is completely different than it was when I first got season tickets and I'm still fighting tooth & nail every week to get up to Boulder to tailgate or even to see a quarter of football at Folsom.

I haven't given up completely. I just can't justify spending almost $1000 + the hassle involved to watch one game. If I lived in CO I would still probably go to the games.

 

[Buff_nc]

I am in this camp. This is about failed leadership. The "scandal" and the state-funding stuff didn't help but ultimately this falls squarely on the shoulders of the administration. I agree that they should take responsibility. It's great that President Benson is putting his money where his mouth is and I believe Rick George is the right guy. What they really need right now is to tell DiStephano to stay away from football altogether, Benson needs to advocate for debt forgiveness to the Athletic Department and they need to unvail the shiny plan to build Pac-12 competitive facilities along with a fundraising drive that is appropriately resourced. They really need a $50MM + donor or donors to kick this off. Until these things happen we will continue to beat our heads against the wall. Also, we need to get some full-grown men up front.

Exactly. And to follow on, what I meant was it isn't just saying "I'm responsible". It is actually knowing and acknowledging the systematic failures that lead to this catastrophic, disastrous fall from national champions and relatively great facilities to being bottom feeders. There is much much more to this long fall than "we just hired a couple of bad guys". And by just saying "we have a couple of good guys now" (though I think it is true), means the systematic problems are not being addressed.

 

[FlatironsBuff]

Love my Buffs. Will be wearing CU hoodies, shorts, have a CU backpack at Disney World on our trip the next 9 days. I support CU all the time. hate losing, always have faith that it will get better someday. Would love me a CU win this weekend and announcements on the facilities next week.

 

[PAHIBuff]

while I understand thread jacking is a time honored tradition of allbuffs, I feel obligated to point out that this has nothing to do with the thread subject.

Thanks for the observation; you're correct. Happens all the time. The topic of CU sucking leads to questions about either quality of personnel, of coaching, of recruiting, or of fundraising, or all of the above. The topic hi-jacks automatically, in a way. It's like "I started talking about zebras, and five minutes later everyone's talking about stripes". As they say in the CU Philosophy Dept, it's a dialectic….

 

[Quattro]

Love my Buffs. Will be wearing CU hoodies, shorts, have a CU backpack at Disney World on our trip the next 9 days. I support CU all the time. hate losing, always have faith that it will get better someday. Would love me a CU win this weekend and announcements on the facilities next week.

**** I still have a 'COLORADO FOOTBALL' license plate border thing on my car, never thought about replacing it

 

[PAHIBuff]

Personal add-in on the subject of attendance/pain: I listened to my first Buff game in 1967 on the radio and have attended games sporadically, one or two a year as an adult, for quite a while. Bought season tickets for the first time this season. I live 40 minutes from Folsom. I like the whole Folsom/going up to Boulder experience. To me, it's like going to a long movie. Even with the season tix, I don't go to every game - about half. I have very low expectations - they began when Hawkins lost to Montana State. It was an Uh-oh moment. I used to be a pretty emotional and wrapped up Buff fan but have found that you can still get a lot of fun out of this and leave much of the pain and angst element at the doorstep. I will still be around when MM's turnaround happens. Wouldn't miss it.

 

[Hugegroove]

Here we are, in year eight of God Awful football. There really isn't any relief in sight. The best we can hope for, IMO, is to be somewhat competitive by 2015.

I have to be honest and say my tolerance is starting to run out. I don't know if I can put up with another two or three years of terrible football. There are other things I could be doing. Supporting the Buffs football team is a time consuming and expensive labor of love. I am starting to feel like my energy might be better spent on other endeavors.

obviously, we are all gluttons for punishment or we wouldn't be here. What is your limit? At what point do you say "enough"? For me, I think I have come to the conclusion that I'm just waiting for an excuse to quit going. Getting hassled by the CU PD at the tailgate could very well be the last straw for me. I don't even know for sure that will happen, but I've run through the scenario in my head several times. Stuff like that doesn't happen at places that place value in their football program. I'm just waiting for the next example.

As an Alum, fan, Buff Club, & All Buffer, I've pretty much stayed with the glass half full perspective. At this point in time, I can't give up on Coach Mac and Rick George. Everyone knows what both of them have inherited, and what their challenges are, so there's no use delving back into that. I believe most everyone's expectations on this board at the start of the season was that the Buffs would win 3-4 games. IMO, if the FB program hasn't shown steady improvement under this current administration by 2015, then I too may say I've reached my limit. I can certainly sympathize with many of the valid posts in this thread. However, If we were to all jump ship now only to return when things do get better, then we all fall into the fair weather fan, jump on the bandwagon category. So I'm not ready to take that label on just yet. Yes, I'll donate a pittance of $$$ here and there, keep my season tickets, support them when & where I can. Sacky, all I can say about being hassled by the PD is; I believe that will all go away when the construction is done, and the opportunity to relocate (away from the bike racks) presents itself. Don't let the PD get to you. Sackygate is as good as it get's.

No matter how bad it may seem, it could always be worse.

 

[DrunkRalphie]

“We didn't break it,” MacIntyre said. “We're here to fix it, and we're fixing it. And we'll keep working to fix it and we'll keep going forward and we'll keep having the right attitude and the right positiveness. It does not get fixed overnight with a magic wand. It does not."


Just want to leave those words here. I understand where all of you are coming from who say you are at a breaking point. I get it. CU football is depressing right now. But if you truly feel like Mac & Rick George were good hires, I don't know how you can abandon ship right now. I think the higher ups have taken huge strides just in the past few months to show that they are all in. I get that just a few short years ago, they had a chance to make some moves that may have kept us out of the depths to which we have fallen, but changes have been made.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just too hopeful that we'll see improvements anytime soon. But like someone said, I can't change where I went to school, I can't change the passion I have for the program. My life is completely different than it was when I first got season tickets and I'm still fighting tooth & nail every week to get up to Boulder to tailgate or even to see a quarter of football at Folsom.

I'm with you.

 

[Buff_nc]

Thanks for the observation; you're correct. Happens all the time. The topic of CU sucking leads to questions about either quality of personnel, of coaching, of recruiting, or of fundraising, or all of the above. The topic hi-jacks automatically, in a way. It's like "I started talking about zebras, and five minutes later everyone's talking about stripes". As they say in the CU Philosophy Dept, it's a dialectic….

If this is at least partially directed at me, I'm sorry.
My pain threshold is very, very high. We watch every minute of every televised game down to the last play regardless of the score, so i know a lot about pac12 walkons. we get back to 1-2 games in colorado per year when we can, and now attend all bay area beatdowns and stay to the end. none of that will change. just dream about attending another national championship game again with the buffs.

 

[PAHIBuff]

If this is at least partially directed at me, I'm sorry.
My pain threshold is very, very high. We watch every minute of every televised game down to the last play regardless of the score, so i know a lot about pac12 walkons. we get back to 1-2 games in colorado per year when we can, and now attend all bay area beatdowns and stay to the end. none of that will change. just dream about attending another national championship game again with the buffs.

No, my post was a response to sackman.

 

[gobuffs58]

ok its thursday.. not saturday nite 5 minutes after a beat down.. im back on the team and will be in my usual seat vs cal!

 

[Daaah]

ok its thursday.. not saturday nite 5 minutes after a beat down.. im back on the team and will be in my usual seat vs cal!

Not me. I'm going backpacking this weekend. Hope I come back to a win, but I'm not counting on it.

 

[BlackNGold]

ok its thursday.. not saturday nite 5 minutes after a beat down.. im back on the team and will be in my usual seat vs cal!

Wear your long underwear. It will be cold at game time.

I will be in my seat.

 

[sackman]

Just want to leave those words here. I understand where all of you are coming from who say you are at a breaking point. I get it. CU football is depressing right now. But if you truly feel like Mac & Rick George were good hires, I don't know how you can abandon ship right now.

this isn't about "abandoning ship". It's about losing passion. At some point, people just stop caring.

 

[onealcd]

the way I look at it is all the losing will just make it that much cooler when they start winning again. It won't be taken for granted

 

[leftybuff]

this isn't about "abandoning ship". It's about losing passion. At some point, people just stop caring.

+1

 

[Deleted member 807]

this isn't about "abandoning ship". It's about losing passion. At some point, people just stop caring.

[video=youtube_share;lt2c9Iyq2UQ]http://youtu.be/lt2c9Iyq2UQ[/video]

 

[Dark Bohner]

Losing to the Cal equivalent of an Embree team will be my threshhold. At least for a few days. This is such a must win game.

 

[pcbuff]

You set aside blocks of time to be a part of something you enjoy. Recently, the joy isn't there as often. When you take time from your family to watch a game and it is painful, you ask yourself if there are better ways to spend your time. Would taking the kids out mountain biking, fishing, skiing, etc., be a better use of time than the lessons learned from a football game together? I see alot fewer games now than pre hawk. I never cancel everything for a weekend to go to boulder. I guess I've reached a threshold. After watching last weeks game I did consciously ask myself if I would help my boys love this game more by changing my rooting interest to one of the local teams. I don't want to take them to an empty Folsome to watch the team get boat raced.​

 

[DenverBuff77]

Losing to the Cal equivalent of an Embree team will be my threshhold. At least for a few days. This is such a must win game.

This. Lose(even by 1 point) and I'm in full blown meltdown mode.

 

[sackman]

A meltdown would necessitate passion. I'm not going to melt down if we lose to Cal. It'll just be another in a long line of disappointing losses. After a while, one looks just like another.

 

[Buffalo Brad]

If we lose to Cal I wll be dissapointed. Meltdown, no. A win will provide some much needed reasons to believe in the future and that will be a nice cherry on a season where we all thought we would win 3-4 games going in. In no way is this win or loss going to change the direction of this program overnight. I am much more concerned about the longer term vision and strategy to fix the much larger issues we are facing with the football program. Not having clarity to these by mid Dec will start a melt down for me.

 

[MtnBuff]

You can somewhat relate it to a player who loves the game but is playing against much better players.

The first few times he gets knocked down he bounces back up and is ready to go again.

In time he still wants to play and still loves the game but takes a little more time to get up and is a little less enthusiastic about lining up again.

Eventually if he doesn't get in at least a few good plays he finds something else to do.

If he really does care about the game it doesn't take a lot to keep him going but it does take some.

The last 3-4 years we haven't just gotten knocked down, we've been repeatedly pancaked. Not only have we been on the ground but other teams have been standing over us and laughing. Our enthusiasm for the game we love has taken a beating.

The good news is that deep down that love for the game is still there for most of us. It's not much but the 3 wins we have this year, even against weak competition have given us a few weeks of at least relief. Win this week against Cal and we don't have to feel like the laughingstock of of the class, we have someone else to look down on and some hope for the future.

We aren't going to suddenly turn into the big kid knocking others down but I think M2 has us on the right track to gradually become more competitive. Those who haven't already lost all interest will gradually get the enthusiasm back. Win more and more games each season and eventually we can start looking at each week not being able to wait for the game to start again instead of just hoping for it to be over with as little pain as possible.

 

[DenverBuff77]

A meltdown would necessitate passion. I'm not going to melt down if we lose to Cal. It'll just be another in a long line of disappointing losses. After a while, one looks just like another.

Agree that they all start to look the same, but this is the barometer game for us. A win(even by 1 point), especially after the really bad loss to Wash, will show a lot about how the team responds to HCMM's coaching. He even seems like he is getting down on/more critical of the team each week.

I think it's pretty important for recruiting. A win against a Cal team shows some progress to potential recruits. This youtube generation wants results ASAP, not promises. Its not like a win will have the 4/5 star kid rolling in, but it could sway a few med/high 3* kids who want to see some kind progress. Wins against CSU and two FCS teams is progress, but IMO that gets erased with a winless PAC12 season. That fact will be used against us by schools going after the same kids we are and make a lot of HCMM's talk just that. Talk.

I've been a sunshine pumper with this new staff, but if we lose this game there is pretty much no way we win a game in the P12 and I think I'm gonna lose lots of faith in them. It might be an overreaction but IMO this is the biggest game CU has played in years. IMO this game will tell a lot about the future of the program under HCMM

 

[BlackNGold]

this isn't about "abandoning ship". It's about losing passion. At some point, people just stop caring.

Exactly!

You set aside blocks of time to be a part of something you enjoy. Recently, the joy isn't there as often. When you take time from your family to watch a game and it is painful, you ask yourself if there are better ways to spend your time. Would taking the kids out mountain biking, fishing, skiing, etc., be a better use of time than the lessons learned from a football game together? I see alot fewer games now than pre hawk. I never cancel everything for a weekend to go to boulder. I guess I've reached a threshold. After watching last weeks game I did consciously ask myself if I would help my boys love this game more by changing my rooting interest to one of the local teams. I don't want to take them to an empty Folsome to watch the team get boat raced.​

Well stated. For many years (decades) my falls have revolved around CU football and they will through this season but next year I am going to do something different. My wife pointed out that now when I leave the house to go to a game my attitude is like I am going to the Dentist. It has become an obligation rather than enjoyment.

 

[DBT]

I'm finding the indication of a solid plan by the new AD to be a bit of a salve to my wounds. IF the AD comes out with solid plan and a set date to begin improvements, my spirit will be a little bit higher. Although, didn't Cal just make a lot of capital improvements?

 

[seattlebuff]

Agree that they all start to look the same, but this is the barometer game for us. A win(even by 1 point), especially after the really bad loss to Wash, will show a lot about how the team responds to HCMM's coaching. He even seems like he is getting down on/more critical of the team each week.

I think it's pretty important for recruiting. A win against a Cal team shows some progress to potential recruits. This youtube generation wants results ASAP, not promises. Its not like a win will have the 4/5 star kid rolling in, but it could sway a few med/high 3* kids who want to see some kind progress. Wins against CSU and two FCS teams is progress, but IMO that gets erased with a winless PAC12 season. That fact will be used against us by schools going after the same kids we are and make a lot of HCMM's talk just that. Talk.

I've been a sunshine pumper with this new staff, but if we lose this game there is pretty much no way we win a game in the P12 and I think I'm gonna lose lots of faith in them. It might be an overreaction but IMO this is the biggest game CU has played in years. IMO this game will tell a lot about the future of the program under HCMM

Couldn't possibly have said it better myself. Does anybody outside of this board even remember that we lost to Utah at the very end last year, that we really should have won that game? No, it was a loss. That's how progress is measured by recruits.

A loss tomorrow, and we're right where we started on the day Embree was fired IMO.