Over the summer, I asked Colorado’s Sefo Liufau if he thought the Buffaloes could surprise some people this season.
“I honestly don’t think we’ll sneak up on people,” the junior quarterback said. “Maybe from a media perspective we’ll sneak up on people, but I think teams last year saw how we fought through the whole game and we didn’t quit.”
Liufau’s right.
Coming off a 2-10 season, the Buffaloes don’t have much respect in the media, or from the general public. I haven’t come across a preview magazine or website yet that picks the Buffs to finish anywhere but sixth in the Pac-12 South Division.
The Pac-12 has surely taken notice, however, that while Colorado isn’t in the upper echelon, it isn’t a pushover anymore.
Ever since the Buffs joined the Pac-12 in 2011, they’ve been picked on. They’ve stood toe-to-toe with Utah every year — CU has a 1-3 record against the Utes, with the three losses by a combined 18 points — but until last year really hadn’t put up much of a fight against the rest of the Pac-12.
Last year, Oregon and USC thumped the Buffs, but everybody else had to play four good quarters of football to knock them out.
Four good quarters may not be enough against this Colorado team.
With Liufau entering his second full season as the starter — and third season as the main signal caller — and a plethora of emerging weapons, the offense could be explosive. It was already one of the country’s most up-tempo offensive units last year.
The defense, which has been a sieve for several years, isn’t loaded with great depth, but has good players in the starting lineup, and an energetic new coordinator in Jim Leavitt. I’d be surprised if CU didn’t improve on that side of the ball this season.
Will the offense be as explosive as it appears it could be? Will the defense make enough improvement to help the Buffs win games? We’ll see.
What I like about this team going into the year, though, is the attitude it possesses.
These players are well aware of how long it has been since CU’s last winning season (10 years) and its last bowl appearance (eight years). They know their record since joining the Pac-12 has stunk.
The Buffs, however, are focusing on the positive. In the two years since Mike MacIntyre and his staff arrived in Boulder, the Buffs have become better athletes. They’ve recruited better athletes. They’ve learned how to play better and compete.
While they are sick of hearing people congratulate them for playing close games last year, they also know that taking Cal and UCLA to double overtime and narrowly missing out on wins against Oregon State and Utah were signs of their hard work paying off.
To the Buffs, those results were tangible evidence that they are headed in the right direction, and that there is a purpose to what they’ve been doing the past couple of years.
“When you go in the darkness and there’s no light around there and you keep struggling and everything, you don’t know where you’re going,” senior tackle Stephane Nembot said. “When there’s a direction on where to go, despite that the road is long, you have that dream in your mind that there’s something at the end that you want to see.”
Yes, it has been a painfully long road, but this team, finally, sees a light at the end of the tunnel. That light?
“The bowl game,” Nembot said. “You get to a bowl game, it’s the beginning of something. It’s the beginning of something beautiful, something special, something that I’m proud to be a part of.”
If Colorado reaches its destination this fall and qualifies for a bowl game, it will, without question, surprise a lot of people around the country.
It won’t, however, be a surprise to the Buffaloes.
Contact staff writer Brian Howell at howellb@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/ BrianHowell33.
