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!

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Summer News


While I was out of town a decent amount of Buff news transpired…
§  2013 Recruiting
§  The Buffs received 4 more verbals over the past week or so bringing the total number of commitments up to eleven recruits and counting; this is the most they have had this early in a very long time.  Although none of the new guys are “big name” 4 or 5-star prospects, the class is shaping up nicely and filling out the roster with some depth.
§  George Frazier (Monrovia, CA) became the first linebacker to commit, a solid 3-star LB.  He was preceded by Columbine’s John Lisella, a smaller OL who is not ranked very highly anywhere yet, as well as CA WRs Bryce Bobo (Covina) and Elijah Dunston (West Hills), both 2-star guys who run track.
§  That gives them a QB, RB, TE, 2 WR, 4 OL, 1 s, 1 LB.  Even with the huge class they are bringing in, they could still use a couple of DL and CBs and will likely want to sign a couple more OL and LBs.
§  Chapparal TE Mitchell Parsons is not pleased, and therefore very motivated to prove them wrong, that he was not invited to Atlanta to participate in an Elite prospect camp.
§  After reading a post from a Cal blog, it looks like CU is targeting many of the same offensive linemen as Cal and many other Pac-12 schools.  However, even Bears fans are lamenting that many of the biggest California names are focused only on USC, Stanford and even UCLA.
§  OL Blake Nowland did commit to CSU?! which is a little disappointing but he obviously is either really interested in animals or is just not that smart.  CU has 2 of the top 5 in the state and 4 of top 16, but CSU has grabbed 4 of the top 12.
§  That leaves OT Dan Skipper as the only “big” name from the state of Colorado that remains uncommitted.
§  Roster talk
§  It is still possible that recruit WR Peyton Williams, who is recovering from knee surgery, could be a greyshirt candidate, depending on how his knee responds right before camp and how the following story develops…
§  No official word yet about if DE Kisima Jagne, who according to family did NOT qualify through the NCAA, was able to figure out his situation, i.e. what Junior College to officially enroll at.  Unfortunately, we will probably never see this talented player in a Buff uniform.
§  Embree does need to have 3 members of the 28-recruit class to greyshirt, delay enrollment until January and count against next year’s already small class-McCartney and Kough already slated-to be at the 25 member class limit.  Hence, the Peyton Williams deal.  However, if Jagne indeed does not make it to Boulder, 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 until he finishes whatever summer work he needs to complete to officially graduate, but Kyle Ringo of the Camera expects him to be in Boulder by late July.
§  Other Program Notes
§  The football program 2nd year of posting highest score ever) and the rest of the Athletic Department were pleased to announce that their APR scores were excellent.  Let’s hope that players like Cordary Allen were academically on track before he left.  Any players who finish their degree early certainly don’t hurt and we will still have to see how many are able to do that as Embree hopes some current juniors can.
§  The CSU game has been moved back to Saturday, Sept. 2 at 2:00 and will be televised by FOX.
§  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 new video boards appear to be coming along nicely (see AllBuffs.com for photo updates) with the South end basically complete.
§  The news on the “major” renovation plans that have been drawn up but not approved or funded may be farther off than Mike Bohn might have led us to believe previously.  Chancellor Phil DiStefano was not very optimistic when he talked about the project.  Although Embree and Co. are showing the drawings to recruiting prospects, I doubt that there is any chance that those recruits would ever see any of the plans come to fruition without a huge private donation.
§  ESPN’s Ted Miller did rank the Buffs as 7th best facilities in the conference which is probably about right.
§  The Buff bashing continues on the national front…
…asPhil Steele’s analysis points out that CU will have the least experienced team in the entire country and he does have a point.  They lost a ton of seniors, have a very small senior class and will be counting on double digit true freshmen playing regular minutes.
…however, Dan Vasta of BleacherReport.com actually put Colorado #70 in his preseason power rankings, ahead of both Arizona and Oregon State, and the highest slot I have seen yet, although he still says that 5 wins is the high end of their range.

No comments:

Post a Comment