Monday Grab Bag: Our long national nightmare is finally over.

This is not the post I began to write last week.  Eager to get a jump on my post-holiday Monday Grab Bag, and desperate to leave my coming vacation free of thoughts concerned with writing, I tried to jot down some paragraphs before I hit the road.  They were not pretty.

Toting the sure-to-be epic failure against Utah to cap a mostly frustrating season, my incomplete musings were long on dour... and why not?  I had little hope that the team that showed less than nothing against the shell of a team that is the UCLA Bruins would fire themselves up for a trip to Salt Lake City.  Even the experts in Vegas were ready to toss dirt on the Buffs' coffin, installing the Utes as 20+ point favorites.

Fate had other ideas.

Today in my freshly written bag, I'll look back at an epic victory against all odds out in Salt Lake Valley, look back on the grand larceny the basketball team pulled off in the Springs, tease the match-up with Georgia this evening, and give some props to the womens hoops squad who are as good as they've been in a decade.

Click below for the bag...

Utah Preview: A new kind of hate

Apparently the geniuses in the respective marketing departments from CU and Utah have decided to name the renewed rivalry between the schools as "The Rumble in the Rockies."  Why the hell did they have to go and do that?  We never seemed to require a faked-up PR name to give the CU-Nebraska rivalry some juice.  Is there going to be some lame trophy with a rock on it?  Just give me clean, old-fashioned, nameless hate.  That'll do more for a rivalry than any name.

The rivalry with Utah (yes, there is a rivalry... look, Wikipedia page!) is one of great historical significance for both schools.  Even the breakup of the old RMAC couldn't keep these rivals apart as they played nearly every year between 1903 and 1962.  Coaches careers were defined by this game, players, like Byron White, made names for themselves by superlative performances against the hated rivals to the west.  This was the rivalry in the region for the first half of the 20th Century; a history major like myself can't look past something like that.

Yes, the Utes are a poor substitute for Nebraska, both in program quality and my ability to hate them, but I'd rather go after someone with whom the school has history than just point at USC or UCLA and give them the stink-eye.  While that is what Coach Mac did with the Huskers back in the early 80s, that rivalry wasn't set in stone until the Huskers hung that celebratory "Sal's dead, Go Big Red" sign up on I-80.  Hate, history; these are what creates a lasting rivalry.  With Utah we're halfway there.  With everyone else in the Pac-12, it's searching for both.

Fuck Utah

(I wrote about this in greater detail during a brief stint writing for the Ralphie Report.)


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The season comes to a close on Friday.  Wake up from your food coma, crack open the leftovers, and tune the channel to ROOT Sports, where the Buffs will kick off against the Utes at 1:30.  It's my one and only road trip of the year, and, even if the team is awful, I'm still looking forward to a fight in enemy territory.

Click below for the preview...

UCLA Preview: Guarantees all around!

Jon Embree and Tyler Hansen do not give a fuck.  22 straight road losses?  Fuck that noise, they flat out guaranteed victory Saturday over UCLA.  Well, maybe they didn't guarantee victory, but it's still a pretty strong declaration to emphatically say that this program, which hasn't won a road game since the before time, the long, long ago, will march into the Rose Bowl, and march out with victory in hand.

Those are some big-assed marbles the team has grown since Saturday morning.

The line has been drawn in the sand, the markers placed.  This team expects to win Saturday and I like it.  The win last weekend over Arizona seems to have done wonders for the teams confidence, and combined with them being as healthy as they've been since the early goings of the season means that now is as good of a time as any to bring some swagger out.

Broadway Joe approves.

Now all they have to do is back it up...

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CU heads into the Rose Bowl looking to finally, mercifully end the the interminable 22-game road losing streak.  These seniors who have seen their careers marginally defined by this streak have a great chance to get it done on Saturday.  Kickoff is set for 5:30MT, and the action can be seen on Versus.  If you can find that channel to watch hockey, then you can find it to watch Buffs football.

Click below for the preview...

ASU Preview: A devil of a time

At last, the no good, lame month of October is coming to a close.  I knew going in that October would probably end with an 0-5 record, with a whole bunch of blowouts thrown in for good measure, but this has almost been worse than I could've imagined prior to the WSU game.  So far, the 10th month of 2011 has thumped CU to the tune of 176-60.  Woof.

Before the season started I saw at least a few opportunities for sweet, sweet victory in November, but now I'm not so sure.  At least there's fewer opportunities for a 40 point blowout.

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The Sun Devil is an acceptably unique mascot; certainly better than their Territorial Cup rival Arizona Wildcats.  To take advantage of the unique aspects of having a Devil for a mascot, I unapologetically present this clip of the Robot Devil from Futurama.

(I got a hundred bucks on rectal exam bot!)

The Buffs are off to warmer climates, poised to hit the Valley of the Sun for the first time since 2007.  Kickoff is set for 4:30, but there's no TV coverage to avoid looking at this weekend.  If you really want to, you can join Mark Johnson on 850 KOA to agonize over the play-by-play.

Click below for my preview...

Monday Grab Bag: Winless in Seattle (harf, harf)

It's cold and rainy today in Boulder Valley... figures... CU remains winless in the new conference; not just football, the whole athletic department is 0-for-the-Pac-12.  *sigh*

But, there's just 26 days left til basketball season starts... so we've got that going for us... which is nice. 

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As promised, today's grab bag carries the title "Winless in Seattle."  I just wanted to get out in front of the Daily Camera sports staff who predictably went with "Defenseless in Seattle" in their wrap-up article.  Boulder Colorado: where the hack headlines are as predictable as the losing football.

Are you ready recap the weekend?!

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Wasington Preview: Call of the Wild

By this point in the season, while the previews always pose interesting challenges, I could almost write a wrap-up before the game starts.  In fact, I've already started my Monday Grab Bag for next week; it's called "Winless in Seattle."  Here's a preview:

"Blah blah special teams disaster, blah blah penalties, blah blah screen game, blah blah team doesn't know how to win, blah blah blah. "

It's been the same for every weekend that CU isn't playing within it's comfort zone (whupping lil brother in Denver), and the whole thing is starting to get old.  I'm having trouble discerning genuine improvement anymore; maybe that's just the cynic in me, but I've reached a critical stage in watching the team this season.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still on board with Coach Embree and crew, but my heart is catching up to what my brain knew all along would be a long rebuilding process

Hell, I'm probably lashing out because of the helpless nature of being a fan, but my eyes are starting to glaze over whenever the football program is brought up.  I'm desperate for a bright spot, but as I said last week, I'm not sure that there's one on the horizon until October passes us all by.

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Balto, the most famous Husky of all time.  That's all I got today.

Making their fist trip to the Pacific Northwest since that dreadful 2004 affair with Washington St, CU takes on the Washington Huskies, looking to somehow, someway halt the road losing streak in its tracks.  Kickoff is set for 1:30 MT, and the game can be seen on Root/FSN if you're so inclined.

Click below for the preview...

Monday Grab Bag: Hooray, we kept 'em under 50!

Lucky for CU, the fight'n Andrew Luck's from Stanford got bored with tossing CU around and turned off the gas before they cracked 50.  I CLAIM VICTORY!

Today in the bag, I'll look back on the game, such as it was, from Saturday, continue to fellate the Luck mythos, and take a look around football nation.

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Stanford Preview: Watch out for that.....

The Stanford Cardinal (singular, not plural) derive their current nickname not from this one tree located nearby, nor it's cartoon-ish manifestation that dances and gets into trouble, but rather from the color Cardinal Red.  That shit is lame; I'm much more comfortable associating the Stanford Cardinal with the drunken tree.

Unless you're a Cal fan, how can you stay mad at a mascot that goofy looking?

My inability to hate the drunken tree reminds me: I'm having a difficult time drumming up scorn for our new Pac-12 brethren.  I'm sure when USC rolls into town I'll be back to my hate spewing days of old, but, for now at least, my vitriol reservoir has run dry.  Can we at least sneak K-State back on the schedule so I have someone to rail against?

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Lessons learned from George of the Jungle be damned, CU is headed straight for that tree.  Kickoff is set for 5:30, and you can watch the horror unfold on Versus... if you have the stomach for it, that is.

Click below for my preview...

Monday Grab Bag: Hey, look, another road loss!

 The watch party at my house got a little rough Saturday.  While there was plenty of beer and food, one of us got punched in the mouth celebrating the first score ('twas unintentional, but the recipient didn't seem to understand that point), and another rolled his ankle stepping in a gopher hole while tossing the ball around at halftime.  All told it was just another awful viewing experience at my house for a road game; I really need to stop hosting watch parties.

This week in the bag, I'll perform some mop-up work on the OSU game, ponder special teams, run around football nation, and eulogize my pathetic White Sox.

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UPDATED: Buffs and the eastern road trip jinx

Please, allow me a slight digression into a painful bit of CU history...

When the Buffs head east this weekend to the palatial confines of Ohio State's Horseshoe, they'll not only be carrying their 5 year-long road losing streak and playing a more talented team, they'll also be fighting against a historical predilection to defeat on eastern road trips. While the Buffs hold a barely over-.500 overall road record, bolstered by a 103-57-4 record in road games played in Colorado, east of the Mississippi River CU is only batting a paltry .317. (For comparison, outside of Colorado, yet west of the Mississippi, CU holds a somewhat respectable .452 winning percentage.)

Crossing the Mississippi River has been a difficult task for CU in the past.

While the program's most important win, the '91 Orange Bowl, came in the very eastern city of Miami, something happens to the Buffalo mojo once the team crosses the "Big Muddy."  Hell, even in that magical year of 1990, the Buffs suffered their only loss of the season when they crossed the Mighty Mississippi to play Illinois.

In order to better understand the program's historical difficulty with eastern excursions, I went through the season archives at CUBuffs.com, and came up with this spreadsheet of results from games played east of the Mississippi.

Not surprisingly, CU started out their history of disastrous eastern road trips with a 35-0 loss to Amos Stagg's Chicago Maroon juggernaut in 1921.  Since that date, the Buffs have slogged to a 13-27-1 all-time record in trips eastward.  Of those 41 trips, including 9 bowl trips, the Buffs were held to 10 points or less 19 times.

While Bobby Anderson had no problems crossing the Mississippi for the '69 Liberty bowl, CU has often struggled when crossing the river.

Outside of the 11 seasons from 1969-1979, where CU went 8-7 in the east, the Buffs are a dreadful 5-20-1.  More worryingly, since Rick Neuheisel whupped the Wisconsin Badgers in his first game as head coach in '95, CU has yet to win east of the Mississippi, having been outscored 258-119 in 8 trips.

Probably the most painful of those 8 recent failures, at least in my eyes, was the '09 trip to Toledo, OH. Fresh off a stunning loss in Folsom to 'little brother,' CU headed to the Glass Bowl in hope of turning the season around.  Instead, CU ran headlong into a Rocket powerhouse that would burst to a 5-7 (3-5) record in '09.  Had the nation been interested, they could've tuned into ESPN that night to see the hapless Buffs give up 624 yards of offense to a mid-level MAC school.  The vaunted rockets would score on 5 of their first 6 possessions, en route to a 54-38 victory that wasn't nearly as close as the scoreline would suggest.

CU seemed a bit slow that night in Toledo.  I'm telling you, weird shit happens on eastern road trips.

Such is life for CU east of the Mississippi.

I'm not saying that CU is doomed on Saturday.  Stranger things have happened, and THE Ohio State University did look particularly awful last weekend in Miami, but it's a steep historical slope that CU will need to trudge up to claim victory.

(Updated for @BupsJones: While there have been plenty of trouble spots, things haven't always been bad east of the Mississippi.  Take for example this game here.  There is always hope!)

UPDATED: Post Labor Day Grab Bag: This is the new sound... just like that old sound

19... it's now 19.  Sigh.

Were there positive signs Saturday night? Sure, but I'm definitely feeling the after-affects of a Hawaiian gut punch.  I don't care who the coach is, losing hurts, and 19 straight road loses, a stigma that stains the program and its national profile, hangs around our collective necks like a big-damn albatross.  I want it gone.

Today in the bag I'll be looking back at the game from Saturday night, action around the nation, more expansion rumors, and the effective end of the road for my Sox.

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Desperate times....

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Cast about in a sea of road losses, I've turned to some admittedly extreme measures to help turn back the tide of losing.

Click below...

Monday Grab Bag: Game week is here. Prepare yourself accordingly.

We've finally arrived at the home stretch of summer.  Sure, the calendar may technically say that summer doesn't end for another month, but we all know that the return of football marks the real start of fall.  Ready, or not, here comes 3 months of Buffs!

Today in the bag I'll be talking about game week prep, some discipline trouble for Hawaii, good news on the recruiting trail, and a brief departure into the world of My Sox.

Click below for the bag...