Bittersweet hugs help Bu≠s embrace promising future
Disappointing loss in Alamo Bowl driving team to excel
Colorado football coach Mike MacIntyre stood in the corner of the Alamodome late Thursday and fixed his gaze on the quarterback making his final walk off a college football field.
Sefo Liufau, hampered by an ankle injury that had plagued his only postseason experience, made the final, hobbled steps toward his coach and let a smile cross his face as tears welled ever so subtly in his eyes. The two collapsed into a bear hug, MacIntyre patted Liufau on the chest, and they entered the tunnel together.
“It’s all over,” Liufau said moments later.
The Buffaloes ended their dream season and return to relevance with a thud Thursday night in a 38-8 loss to Oklahoma State in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio. But as MacIntyre took the time to embrace his seniors as they walked off the turf and away from a raucous Cowboys celebration, he could only think about the journey.
“I wanted to see them one last time coming off the field,” MacIntyre said. “They’ve given everything they’ve had when nobody believed in ’em. Now everybody believes in ’em. It didn’t end like
«FROM 1CC we’d like it to, but wow, what they’ve done, they set a foundation for us to keep improving. That’s the next step in the process.”
If the 2016 regular season showed how far CU had come since a dismal stretch of losing began nine years ago — 10 wins, the largest turnaround in Pac-12 history, sold-out Folsom Field — the postseason, which featured a pair of losses that came by an average of 30.5 points, showed how much room “The Rise” still has to climb.
“Now that we kind of got our feet wet — been in the Pac-12 championship, the Alamo Bowl, one of the biggest stages — now it’s about going back to the drawing board,” said junior running back Phillip Lindsay. “Now we know how to get there, and it’s about finishing. We were inexperienced.”
The Buffs denied any complacency in their preparation for the Alamo Bowl. But senior center Alex Kelley also stressed that the team had little idea what to expect. If CU looked like a team that had never sniffed the postseason playing against a team whose seniors played in a bowl every year, that’s because that was exactly the situation the Buffs faced.
“That could have helped us,” Okla- homa State coach Mike Gundy said. “I would not disagree with that.”
The Buffs who return next season, including everyone on the starting offense besides Liufau and Kelley, now have the advantage of understanding the elevated nature of college football in December.
There is promise and also uncertainty as CU prepares to take the next step. MacIntyre’s immediate priority will be to search for a defensive coordinator. Safeties coach Joe Tumpkin could be a candidate — he was the interim coordinator Thursday night — but CU will almost certainly explore outside options as well. CU loses eight senior starters on defense and must replace talent at all three levels.
Although CU cornerbacks Chidobe Awuzie and Ahkello Witherspoon were slowed by injuries Thursday, there’s no doubting their impact in a secondary — which also included senior safety Tedric Thompson — that was one of the nation’s best this season. The entire front line of Josh Tupou, Samson Kafovalu, Jordan Carrell and Jimmie Gilbert must be replaced, and heady linebacker Kenneth Olugbode will also leave big shoes to fill.
Offensively, Steven Montez will be the leading candidate to replace Liufau at quarterback. He received valuable experience as a redshirt freshman in 2016, including roughly a quarter of action in the Alamo Bowl. With most of its experience coming back residing on that side of the ball, CU’s offense must be much better than it was in the final stretch of the season.
Against the two highest-ranked opponents CU faced — Washington and Oklahoma State — the Buffs managed just two touchdowns in eight quarters.
“We’ll just keep working on it,” MacIntyre said of the offense, which he said was slowed by Liufau’s ankle injury late in the season. “We’ll have a lot of guys back. We’ll have some young guys that we redshirted that I definitely think can help us. We’ll have some linemen that can help us that have gotten bigger and stronger, like (offensive guard) Timmy Lynott did this year. We’ll have some skill guys, plus some guys that got hurt in camp that are really good.”
There’s also the matter of CU’s highest-rated recruiting class in years, which will become official in early February, that provides hope for the future.
The long walks off the field Thursday night were reminiscent of some of the painful ends to seasons the Buffs have experienced in the recent past. The difference: The group saying goodbye this time left a sturdy steppingstone.
“I’ll be watching in years to come because I think they’ve got something good going,” Liufau said. “It’s just a start.” Nick Kosmider: 303-954-1516, nkosmider@denverpost.com or @nickkosmider