Washington State – NEVER Give In!

Home // 2012 Season // Washington State

Colorado 35, Washington State 34

(There have been 11 comments, post your CU memory now)

Colorado quarterback Jordan Webb scored on a four-yard run with nine seconds to play, the last of three Colorado touchdowns in the final seven minutes, to stun Washington State 35-34 on Saturday in the Pac-12 Conference opener for both teams.

Webb threw for two touchdowns and ran for two more for Colorado, which had been outscored by an average of 40-19 coming into the game, and entered the game in Pullman as twenty-point underdogs.

The start of the game was eerily similar to what had befallen the Buffs in a 69-14 defeat at Fresno State the week before. Washington State took the opening kickoff and barely broke a sweat in taking the ball down the field for a score. It took the Cougars only six plays to cover 75 yards, with quarterback Connor Halliday hitting Gabe Marks for a 32-yard touchdown less than two minutes into the game.

Then, something different happened … Colorado did not immediately fold.

NEVER Give In!

(There have been 2 comments, post your CU memory now)

I spent much of the week leading up to the Washington State reminiscing about the 1980 season.

It wasn’t by choice that I was thinking back to my freshman year in Boulder. Rather, the Buffs actions on the field had taken me, involuntarily, back to one of the darkest periods in CU history.

The 69-14 beat down by Fresno State broke some records which had lasted over three decades. In the 1980 opener – my first game as a black-and-gold clad Buff fan – Colorado fell behind UCLA 56-0 … at halftime. That the Bruins failed to score the remainder of the game was on little consolation, as the tone had been set for the 1-10 season.

In the 1980 home opener, CU lost to Indiana (coached by – Heaven help us – Lee Corso), 49-7 … and then things got even worse. A scathing Sports Illustrated article about Chuck Fairbanks’ excesses in the wake of Colorado shutting down “minor sports” was followed up by another record-setting loss, this time in the epic 82-42 loss to Oklahoma. Then the Buffs lost to Drake for the second year in a row!