Bye Week Update

This is going to be a long two weeks without any CU football, but we can keep repeating the mantra “We are still undefeated”.  Here are a few tidbits to tide us over in the interim:

§  Review of the tape: Nothing to watch this week, although Oregon State’s overtime win over Utah was exciting.  The Buffs have their work cut out for them against the Beavers’ offense, but that November matchup with the Utes looks winnable just because we have P-Rich.

§  It was still fun to watch nebraska get beat, even though UCLA beat CU’s record for most points scored in a quarter against the corn.  I also enjoyed watching Johnny Ego lose to ‘Bama-Roll Tide!- as well as Texas going down to the mormons!  It would have been a perfect day if only Purdue had held on to beat notre lame.

§  Reschedule? There have been a lot of possibilities thrown out to reschedule the game with Fresno St. this year-play Dec. 7 if FSU doesn’t make MWC championship, play Dec. 14 before Army-Navy, ask UNLV to move week 8 game in Fresno to week 12-but that just may not be realistic, with 2015 the most likely slot. 

§  Right as I was about to post this, Jeremy Fowler of CBSports posted that the UNLV option is out, the Dec. 14 date also, as well as asking Cal to come to Boulder this week (that was just too soon, even for Boulder let alone Cal and I hadn’t bother to mention it); instead, Fowler thinks Friday, December 6 is the date, provided Fresno St. does not make the title game, otherwise it would be off.  He did add that another school could be an option to be lured to Boulder.  They would be able to offer some cash and possibly a future home-and-home, or even just a Buffs visit...

§  The Buffs and Boulder need the revenue of the extra home game, and therefore another option is to schedule a different team to a game this year. There are some intriguing options including: Mike MacIntyre’s former team San Jose St., who has the necessary prerequisites without too much NCAA red tape, that is they have a week 8 bye and they play at Hawaii, which would allow an extra game; San Diego St. also shares the open date and Hawaii factor; Air Force has the open date and would be easy travel logistics; K-State might see it as a winnable game and Snyder is a stand-up guy; ain’t no way Texas or Nebraska is adding a trip to Boulder, although it might be good PR for Penn St. to do so.

§  BoulderDevil has the list of 29 potential opponents who have a week 8 bye: http://buffwatch.blogspot.com/2013/09/29-teams-colorado-could-play-october.html

§  Injuries: Everyone on the Buffaloes should be able to recover from their minor injuries, and even some of the longer term ones like Josh Ford and Jeromy Irwin could make it back.  Powell should be 100% from his thigh bruise with two more weeks off.

§  Honors, mentions and recognitions: P-Rich will lose his status as top national receiver, especially after the monster games of Oregon State’s Cooks and TAMU’s Mike Evans, which should give P-Rich some serious motivation to go after three straight 200-yards games.

§    The Corvallis Gazette-Times has the Buffs ranked 8th in their conference rankings,one spot ahead of hometown Oregon State.

  -ESPN Pac12 blog ranked CU 11th in their power rankings ahead of Cal and with OSU at 8. They also wrote the most positive statement about the Buffs’ season yet: “The perceived bottom teams -- Colorado, Washington State and California -- are clearly good enough to give anyone some trouble. It wouldn't be shocking if any of those three rallied for bowl eligibility.” (my emphasis)  

§  2014 Recruiting: Buffs holding steady at 13 verbal commitments.

§  Other Buff notes: Former WR Patrick Williams has been added to the staff in some administrative capacity.

§  Pacific Takes Pac12 Fantasy league: I will be giving weekly updates of my Pac12 fantasy team Bringin’ the Buff, who suffered its first loss of the year when “New Team 3” (come on man, got to pick a creative name?!) went off late Saturday night with a monster 50 from Utah QB Travis Wilson, a Richardson-topping 38 from Oregon St. WR Brandin Cooks, plus solid night from ‘zona RB Ka’Deem Carey and a TD from OSU TE Hamlett. Meanwhile, I had to sit my main guy, P-Rich, and found out only after the game started that my TE, Oregon’s Colt Lyerla, was not even playing due to the stomach flu (and of course his backup had a career debut with over a 100 yards and 2 TDs).  Wild Pac12 play leads to some crazy fantasy games as well.

§  Next week I have almost everyone on a bye, including D’Anthony Thomas and P-Rich, so I have a piecemeal lineup and am likely to even my record at 2-2. 

§  I would love for the Buffs to find a way to make up another game against Fresno St. or anyone just to get P-Rich in the lineup another week.

§  Greg Henderson is one of the top individual defensive players with his two TDs, although no one has taken him yet-I might when USC hybrid S-LB Dion Bailey has his bye week 6.

§  Overall, I am still pretty pleased with my lineup, but will have some tough weeks.  My main competition is the commish-he took Marcus Mariota when I grabbed Thomas and has a great roster-I only wonder what would have been if I had taken Mariota instead.