BOULDER — Colorado coach Jon Embree could list all his team’s shortcomings on one of the Flatirons that looms over CU’s struggling football program.
The cornerback crew is made up of true freshmen and converted receivers, bailing wire and tricks. The defense has no ballhawks, the offense has one game-breaking receiver and the roster has all the depth of Kim Kardashian.
But these colossal obstacles look like fine print compared with the Buffs’ real problem. It’s not in their feet. It’s not in their hands. It’s in their hearts. It’s in their heads.
“We don’t expect to win,” Embree said. “Obviously we don’t. It’s on me. I get that. It starts with Jon Embree.”
Their come-from-ahead, last-minute 31-27 loss to what had been the worst team in the Pac-10 is a scary omen in the Buffs’ historic first Pac-12 game. Ahead 27-17 with five minutes left Saturday, the Buffs (1-4) melted like a team that treats a lead like a live grenade.
Two touchdown passes by a backup quarterback — albeit a very productive Marshall Lobbestael — sent Embree frothing into his postgame news conference.
“I asked them, ‘When is it going to be enough?’ ” he yelled. “When is enough enough?”
That question has permeated this program since Dan Hawkins started the worst five-year coaching tenure in school history. The staff has changed. So has some personnel. Yet the mentality of not showing any gumption to win remains.
Players admit it. Senior linebacker Josh Hartigan said this is the closest team he has been on but hinted that some of the younger players have no sense of urgency.
“I know a lot of people are hurting right now. I know a lot of people who could care less right now,” Hartigan said. “I know that kids are thinking, ‘You know, I’ll be here another couple years and things will get better.’
“But for a lot of us, this is possibly our last year playing football. All of us need to step up. We need to do more.”
The box score will show Lobbestael’s 63-yard pass to Marquess Wilson won the game with 1:10 left. How the nation’s most productive receiver could get open from here to Louisville — Louisville, Ky. — was passed off simply as “a blown coverage.”
No one threw anyone under the bus, but true freshman cornerback Greg Henderson and safety Anthony Perkins were barely within the Mountain time zone of Wilson.
The big picture is what lost this game. It’s a picture of a program that has developed a culture of losing and a first-year coaching staff failing to change it.
“I had enough after the Hawaii game,” junior linebacker Doug Rippy said. “I just hope the other guys did too. It takes guys longer than others to really realize it. We’ve been losing for the past five years . . . and I’m tired of it. It gets old.”
Better get used to it, kid. Right out of the Pac-12 incubator, Colorado established itself as the worst team in the league. Washington State (3-1) is vastly improved but it also represented the end of the easy part of Colorado’s schedule.
The Buffs play three of their next four on the road — where they have lost 20 straight out of state — at No. 6 Stanford, at Washington and at No. 25 Arizona State sandwiched around a visit from — gulp! — No. 9 Oregon.
A bowl game is a pipe dream. Embree can’t bring in anyone off the waiver wire as he could in the NFL. But finding a heart might be nice.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299, jhenderson@denverpost.com,
