Soak Up The Sun

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Soak up the Sun

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I can’t say that I am a huge Sheryl Crow fan.

I like some of her songs; I’m not that big on others.

For the record, the Sirius presets in my car – when I’m not listening to sports channels, of course – tend to go back a bit further in time: the 70s and 80s channels; The Bridge; Road Trip Radio; and yes, Yacht Rock Radio.

But there is one Sheryl Crow song in particular which applies to my relationship with Colorado football in 2022 … “Soak Up the Sun”.

The song contains these lyrics:

It’s not having what you want
It’s wanting what you’ve got

… with the following chorus:

I’m gonna soak up the sun
I’m gonna tell everyone to lighten up
I’m gonna tell ’em that I’ve got no one to blame
For every time I feel lame, I’m lookin’ up
I’m gonna soak up the sun

If you have been a Buff fan this year, or a Buff fan for the past 15 years, you’ve had to learn to live with what we’ve got.

For the most part, you’ve had to find ways to go about your business, enjoy other pursuits, and not take life – or CU athletics – too seriously.

If CU doesn’t, why should we?

Poor coaching. Poor recruiting. Poor administrative support.

Check. Check. Check.

While college football was evolving over the past two decades, CU was devolving. The Buffs joined the Pac-12 on a string of five straight losing seasons, and haven’t come up for air since. Sure, there was the unlikely run in 2016 with a bunch of fed up seniors who decided enough was enough, and there was the quirky 2020 season when the Buffs managed to emerge with a winning record during a pandemic.

Other than that, Colorado has been a punchline. The only records CU sets these days is for poor play. Every weekend, it’s more of the “lowest ever” this or “first time since” that.

With the 42-24 loss to Arizona State, the Buffs have clinched yet another losing season. What is that? 15 losing seasons in the past 17 years?

That’s not just bad, that’s absurdly bad. That’s worse than Northwestern bad (nine winning seasons since 2006); that’s worse than Vanderbilt bad (three winning seasons since 2006); that’s even worse than Kansas bad (two winning seasons since 2006, with a 5-3 record so far this fall).

That’s “you’ve got to be f***in’ kidding me” bad.

And the 2022 team is in competition with the 2012 1-11 team as the very worst of the bunch.

Oh, and just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse … The nation is going to see for itself just how bad the 2022 team is, as the CU game against Oregon will be nationally televised at 1:30 Saturday on ESPN.

Seriously.

ESPN is going to give Oregon a spotlight to format why it believes it should be in the conversation for a Playoff berth, and I fully expect the Ducks to take advantage of the opportunity.

They were joking on Pac-12 After Dark after the CU loss to Arizona State, when the kickoff time for the Oregon game was announced, that the only question about the game was whether the “scoreboard operator would be well hydrated, so they don’t get a cramp”.

Ha. Ha.

I love stats. I love history. I love CU football, and am immersed in its lore.

But this season, the Buffs have been making headlines for all of the wrong reasons. The Buffs have been a mainstay this season in the CBS “Bottom 25” (No. 3 this past week) and the ESPN “Bottom Ten” (No. 9) … and there is no reason they won’t stay there the remainder of the season.

Did the Buffs finally push past 20 points for the first time all year against ASU? Yes, but getting to 34 points against an Arizona State defense with as many 100+ national rankings as Colorado is not cause for celebration. One score came on a punt return by Jordyn Tyson, and quarterback J.T. Shrout through as many passes over the heads of his receivers and out of bounds as he had completions.

Shrout’s line for the game … 13-for-34 for 222 yards, with two touchdowns and an interception. The total yards and two scores are acceptable; the 38% completion rate certainly is not.

And the Buff defense?

Oh-mi-God.

Colorado gave up 435 yards passing to someone named Trenton Bourguet, who made his first career start a memorable one, completing 74% of his passes (32 of 43) while not being touched (zero sacks by the Buffs).

By halftime, Arizona State had touchdown drives of 64, 75, 75, and 75 yards. The Sun Devils had 307 yards of total offense … in two quarters.

I was at the 2012 Colorado/Oregon game in Eugene. The Buffs had lost at home to the Ducks, 45-2, in their first meeting as a member of the Pac-12, and the 2012 game was CU’s first venture to play Oregon in Eugene since 1986.

The Buffs came into the 2012 game with a 1-6 record; Oregon was 5-1.

It was 28-0 at the end of the first quarter; 56-0 at halftime. The Ducks could have scored a hundred, but called off the dogs in settling for a 70-14 rout. Marcus Mariota threw only 14 passes all day, as Oregon ran over Colorado to the tune of 617 yards of total offense.

Look for more of the same next Saturday … and the following Friday on national television against USC.

For his part, interim head coach Mike Sanford said the right things in his ASU post-game press conference:

“This team is gonna fight to the very end, and there will be a breakthrough and I believe that and I think the process that we’re going about, the players believe in it, they’re seeing some of the fruits of their labor. And I think putting it all together, we’re going to see that all come to fruition at some point and obviously we’re gonna take it just like we do every single day in our preparation. We’re gonna do one day at a time and then we just have to be the better team out there on Saturday. We’re certainly not gonna be supposed to beat anybody on the remainder of our schedule, but we’re gonna have a mentality that we just got to be the better team that one Saturday”.

It’s not having what you want
It’s wanting what you’ve got

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But … is there perhaps some light at the end of the tunnel?

This week, Buffs4Life announced the creation of a Collective for CU athletics.

From the Buffs4Life website …

The Buffs4Life Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization, is a support system that provides financial assistance, mental health resources, and community to former CU Boulder student-athletes in need. We have created the Buffs4Life NIL Collective to extend this support to current student-athletes, to strengthen the bond between generations of Buffs, and to continue to elevate mental health awareness.

A tax-deductible financial contribution to the Buffs4Life NIL Collective can be made to the general fund that supports all CU student-athletes or to a specific team, group of student-athletes, or an individual student-athlete. 15% of every donation goes to the Buffs4Life Foundation while the rest goes directly towards compensating student-athletes for their name, image and likeness.

This is what CU fans have been clamoring for since NIL became legal July 1, 2021. Almost every other Power Five school has jumped into the fray, but to date Colorado has stayed above it all. CU continues to adhere to NCAA regulations which are being ignored by other schools. NIL opportunities are the new normal, and are expected by high school recruits and transfers.

Why it took 16 months to come up with CU’s first Collective is anyone’s guess, but one exists now. There had been plenty of griping on the CU message boards about the inactivity of the movers and shakers in the alumni community.

So when one was finally announced, what was the reaction?

— What if a collective gives $$ to a player you don’t like? Is that any different? You will never have total control where your $$ goes when you give to a collective used for NIL;

— Is this a legit collective? Are there a few donors pouring a 1/4 million into this thing? Or is this a “hey, donate here, help a Buff” crowdsourcing effort?;

— We are more pathetic than Miami with former players; and

— I am all for helping former Buffs in tough times and very much have. But Buffs4life should not get all the glory. I have yet to see them voice or stand against the things that need to be changed. And there is some folks in buffs4life that don’t stand for the things that many of us do on here for the greater good of this program. There are “many” former players that feel CU does a poor job connecting with them and there are “many” who knows our pain as they experienced just that.

Leave it to Colorado fans to look what could be the first step back to legitimacy and criticize the effort. It’s not as if the creation of the Buffs4Life CU Collective is a panacea. There are way too many issues with the program right now, both internal and external, to assume that the creation of the Collective will immediately bring CU back to something even resembling respectability.

But it’s better than what we’ve had so far in the world of NIL and Collectives, which has been nothing.

It’s not having what you want
It’s wanting what you’ve got

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Colorado is 1-7 on the 2022 season, and, with a November schedule consisting of Oregon; at USC; at Washington; and Utah, is well on its way to its second-ever 1-11 campaign.

That’s the reality. Colorado is at rock bottom – again – and may be even further down than any of us would have thought possible.

Oh, and that’s coming right when realignment is heating up, with the distinct possibility that the moribund CU program could be left without a chair when the music stops.

It is what it is.

If we don’t like it?

Well, we can always just go out and Soak up the Sun.

That may be all that’s left …

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This post, about the Arizona State game, from the 2022 Season, is filed under Article.
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