Boulder – Most teams have red-letter games. Well, welcome to Colorado’s golden box.
It’s a twist on the old standard of marking big games, where the CU football team has squarely placed Saturday’s home game against the Missouri Tigers.
“This is a crucial part in our season,” offensive lineman Clint O’Neal said. “This is a golden-box game. We have golden boxes for all of our November games, which is we state as a team this is when we play our best ball.”
The winner Saturday takes control in the Big 12 North. Missouri (5-3, 3-2) is one game behind CU (6-2, 4-1), but a victory would pull the Tigers even and they would own the head-to-head tiebreaker. A victory for CU guarantees the Buffs no worse than a share of the North title with two games left.
“We’re still in the position that we wanted to be in, where we control our own destiny,” CU coach Gary Barnett said.
Said Missouri coach Gary Pinkel: “There’s a lot out there in this football game, and we know that. When you have two (league) losses, it’s not wise to get a third one. We will not place a lot of emphasis on that. We will just place emphasis on preparing and playing well.”
Missouri never has played in the Big 12 championship game, but could earn its first trip by winning its three remaining games. The Buffs, meanwhile, are trying to get back to the Big 12 title game after losing to Oklahoma a year ago. CU will have history on its side Saturday, having won nine of its past 10 games against Missouri in Boulder.
“It’s a must-win game,” CU safety Tyrone Henderson said. “We make or break our champ- ionship right here.”
As a show of confidence, the Buffs have golden-boxed the Big 12 championship game, though they have yet to qualify for it. Within the CU program, getting to the conference title game has trumped becoming bowl-eligible, which the Buffs did last week by earning a sixth victory against Kansas State. There was no talk of a bowl game then, and there hasn’t been any this week.
“I haven’t heard that discussion on our team yet,” Barnett said. “I think it’s a real good sign.”
CU still can get to the Big 12 title game if it loses Saturday, but would need to win out and hope Missouri loses one of its final two games. Missouri needs one more victory to get to a bowl game after sitting home a year ago, when it was the preseason favorite of many to win the Big 12 North. The Tigers are coming off a head-scratching loss to Kansas, which defeated the Tigers for the third consecutive year.
Missouri senior quarterback Brad Smith, 13th nationally in total offense, was held to 179 total yards in the 13-3 loss at Kansas.
“I think we can take a little more motivation from that,” Smith said. “The offense didn’t play real well, and that just makes us more anxious to come out this weekend and do more than we did last weekend.”
CU reports 5,500 tickets are available for Saturday’s game.
Staff writer Chris Dempsey can be reached at 303-820-5455 or cdempsey@denverpost.com.
