When CU fans see the Buffs on the wrong side of a 17.5-point point spread, they generally come up with one of two major takeaways:
1. Easy money!
2. This Air Force game on Saturday could make for a really, really, really long afternoon.
Especially after the way last Friday’s night stinker at home vs. TCU knocked the wind out of so many amped, hopeful CU sails. Well, to those folks worried about what awaits the Buffs in the wild blue yonder, Pac-12 Network analyst Yogi Roth offers up a simple, gentle suggestion:
Whatever faith you’ve got left, you better keep it.
“(There are) fans that may want to criticize the program or boo a quarterback,” Roth told The Denver Post earlier this week. “There’s a lot that goes into every season, every game plan, every game. Support your team as they head into Week 2 of a very long season. Itap early. Itap. Early.”
History loves and hates CU football with roughly equal affections right now. On one hand, the Buffs (0-1) are back at Falcon Stadium for the first time since 1974, a building where they’ve won five consecutive meetings and are 5-1 all-time as a program.
On the other, 1974 was a really, really, really long time ago. And CU is coming off a Friday night opener, at Folsom Field, in which it gave up 275 rushing yards to the Horned Frogs — 261 in the second half alone.
Thatap a stat that doesn’t exactly portend well when heading to Air Force (1-0), one of few remaining FBS keepers of the triple option flame. The Falcons’ vaunted run game rolled for 582 yards in a 48-17 win over Northern Iowa last weekend. The Buffs’ run defense and the inability of CU’s two-headed quarterback monster to produce touchdowns is why a Pac-12 team is an underdog by more than two touchdowns against a Mountain West team in its home state.
“(Air Force is) a great challenge for us,” Buffs coach Karl Dorrell noted. “We’ve got to continue to get better each week, improving our game and making progress from the stuff that we messed up last week to this week. And I know it’s a different opponent, but we’ve still got to shore up some things … and we’re working on those things to get them all cleaned up.”
The Buffs and Dorrell have been here before — although against a different strata of blueblood.
CU was a Week 2 underdog by 17 points to then-No. 6 Texas A&M last fall in a semi-neutral site tilt at Empower Field. Dorrell’s team, in hindsight, played one of their best overall games of the season, aided by a leg injury in the first quarter that knocked the Aggies’ starting QB, Haynes King, out of the game. While the A&M offense sputtered, the Buffs weren’t much better, and CU fell in frustrating fashion by a score of 10-7.
“Unfortunately for Karl, in (that) game against TCU, they were at a speed disadvantage,” former CU coach and current CBS Sports analyst Rick Neuheisel observed. “And when you don’t have speed, you have to have some trick up your sleeves, (such as) the QB run. And right now, the trick up the sleeve, the QB run, is on the other sideline. And therein lies the problem.”
Zoomie fans have staked a claim to a mythical state title for several years, and with the Buffs and CSU Rams visiting Falcon Stadium in the same season for the first time 1970, this fall provides a chance to prove it.
“With all the fans, I would argue, take a deep breath,” Roth continued. “And, if anything, Week 2 of a season, support the team that you love even more than you did in Week 1, when every program (says), ‘We’re in the College Football Playoff.’ I would think you’ve got to throw down even harder. (The Buffs) are not going to lose by 18.”
