Welcome!

Teacher by day, Buff fanatic by night, and, actually throughout the school day also. I was raised in Boulder during the dark Chuck Fairbanks years by two University of Michigan alums. I knew "Go Blue!" long before "Go Buffs!", but when a relatively unknown defensive coordinator was hired to lead the Buffs, my interest was slightly piqued. By the time I reached high school Bill McCartney was building a solid foundation with homegrown talent like Jon Embree and I remember the day in 1986 when Boulder celebrated the win over Nebraska. In college I sold beer, watched Coach Mac win a championship, Rashaan Salaam win a Heisman and I was hooked forever. When Jon Embree was hired, I renewed my season tickets and hit the practice rail. I wrote up a few things for some relatives, forwarded them to a few friends, and then made it a blog. Now I find writing about my Buffies is fun, more informative and therapy! I'll post a few times a week during the season, less in the offseason, with news, musings and links. Go Buffs!

Monday, June 11, 2012

More Summer News


A bunch has actually happened in recent days…
§  2013 Recruiting
***Just in!  CU received verbal commitments from 3-star (from at least one site anyway) offensive line teammates at The Woodlands (Texas) guard Jonathon Huckins and tackle Sam Kronshrage,  for their 6th and 7th commits for the 2013 class.
-CUattheGame.com had just posted a nice little piece on the Buffs’ offensive line status and recruiting needs.   They are actually in generally good shape as this is their most experienced group on offense.  This just strengthens the future a little. 
-They are still targeting quite a few lineman as they only signed 2 for this cycle (with another going to greyshirt), but it appears the biggest names, while still entertaining CU at times, are only really interested in the biggest names in college football.   However, they are still in the running for some 3-star prospects, including Arvada’s Dan Skipper, who many believe is a “must get” for the Buffs as he is the biggest name left in Colorado. 
§  Roster talk
§  It is possible that WR Peyton Williams, who is recovering from knee surgery, could be a greyshirt candidate, depending on how his knee responds right before camp opens.  Coach Embree said he wouldn’t want him to lose practice time, even as a redshirt, because of the injury.  See more below.
§  It appears that (according to a “family member”) that DE Kisima Jagne did NOT qualify through the NCAA clearinghouse by (again, according to an unnamed relative) by the smallest of margins.  However, they believe there are still options where he can become a Buffalo without going to a JC (I am going to guess that he enrolls in an Arizona Junior College and I also bet they all have it picked out already). So, still it is an unclear situation.
§  Embree needs to have 3 members of the 28-recruit class to greyshirt-McCartney and Kough already slated-to be at the 25 member class limit.  Hence, the Peyton Williams deal.  However, if Jagne indeed does not qualify, then that problem will unfortunately be solved and may make it easier for Williams to not greyshirt, even if he is not quite 100%, which would leave one more slot for next year’s crop of prospects.
§  There is still nothing official on former Kansas QB transfer Jordan Webb, although it now seems that he needs summer classes to complete his degree at Kansas, which would enable him to be able to play immediately for another team with two years of eligibility left.  So, if he indeed does come to CU, it will not be until late July, and without the benefit of passing with the receivers and learning the playbook with everyone else during “voluntary” (i.e. no coaches) summer workouts.  It appears more and more, even though he supposed has chosen CU based on the prospect of playing time, that he is more the Brent Burnette insurance type.
§  Veteran players have reported from those early summer workouts that incoming frosh TE Vincent Hobbs appears bulked up and very strong in addition to being really fast!
§  Pre Snap Read claims that(Connor) Wood is starting against Colorado State on Sept. 2. Whether he remains the starter depends on his own play and Hirschman’s right foot.”
§  There was one official “roster move” as an extra scholarship for next year opened up when Cordary Allen left the program.  The late, low-rated 2010 recruit was just not D-1 material-not fast enough to play RB, no hands to play TE and not strong enough to play DE-and could never make any headway on the depth chart.  I do not know if he was “encouraged” to leave or just finally gave up.  He is the 8th of 24 (fully one-third Hawkins’ lame-duck 2010 class) that has left the program.
§  There was a brief report that Paul Richardson was way ahead of schedule in his ACL rehab and might possibly be available this year-but nothing has been substantiated so this is at the bottom of this section.
§  Other Program Notes
§  Sr. LB Doug Rippy and Jr. 2nd-team All-Pac-12 LT David Bahktiari will accompany Jon Embree and be interviewed first at the Pac-12 Media Day on July 24.
§  The Golden Nugget has put out some preseason odds, and although the game has not yet been picked up for television, CU is listed as a 6.5 favorite over CSU to open the season.
§  The Buff bashing continues on the national front as…
1) Athlon predicted that the Buffs will begin 3-0, but that they will not be able to find a way to win even a single Pac-12 game!  I understand that there are some holes on paper, but really, seriously?!  Is it really realistic to believe that they will actually go 0-9 in the pac-12, not winning a single conference game, something the program has not done in forever   And this prediction with Utah, whom the Buffs, everyone seems to forget, beat in Salt Lake City last year, coming to Boulder, as well as four schools with new coaches on the schedule.  Is there truly no win to be had anywhere?!  That is a little overblown and I would love to put an over/under bet on wins with any of their writers with either a line of .5 for conference or 3.5 for the season.
2) Pre Snap Read ranked the Buffs #89, actually one of the higher ratings.  They said a dream season would be 7 wins and bowl game, while the nightmare would be the aforementioned winless Pac-12 slate.  Read it all at: http://www.presnapread.com/no-89-colorado/
3) Bill Connelly from SBNation.com wrote a pretty fair, objective piece on the Buffs and ended with: “I'll say the success-or-not line, then, is around five games. A bowl game would be optimal, but baby steps.” & “The road back to prominence gets longer and longer in Boulder, but a bowl bid is still a possibility with a hot start. And even some minor bowl, with a 6-7 final record, would represent a significant, positive forward.”  http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-football/2012/6/7/3070052/2012-colorado-football-preview
§  Interesting (and depressing) stat from Connelly about last year: The Buffs had only 8 defenders total and only ONE defensive back who played in all 13 games last year (Greg Henderson I believe) as everyone else missed time due to injury or indiscretion.
§  Work is continuing on the new video boards at Folsom Field but nothing specific to report yet-the photos out there do not really show anything exciting.

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