“We just came up a little bit short again.”
Those words, spoken by Buffaloes head coach Mike MacIntyre, could very well be CU’s motto at this point. For the last year and a half, the best thing you can say about this Buffalo program is that they’ve been close, painfully close.
“It hurts,” MacIntyre continued. “To look in their eyes after a game like that … I told them that we all got to find a way to reach down in our soul, our heart, our mind, our spirit, and take the next step.”
But we’ve heard this all before, haven’t we? MacIntyre has told us “it hurts” and that they’ve got to find a way to “take the next step” every week since he came to Boulder. When’s the next step coming?
The Buffs are now 2-7 in their last nine one-score games. That’s not bad luck; that’s a lifestyle.
The University of Colorado doesn’t know how to win; they can’t. When the rubber meets the road, and it’s time for someone to stand up and grasp victory, MacIntyre and his football team simply don’t know how to do it.
Years of losing continues to breed more losing; these Buffaloes aren’t as bad as last year’s 2-10 team, and that 2-10 team (which played six top-25 teams and a much improved CSU program) wasn’t as bad as the 4-8 team before them. The issue is that the Buffaloes have developed a culture of losing, and until they’re shocked from that reality, I don’t see it changing.
Maybe MacIntyre has to stop feeling bad for his team and start feeling angry. Maybe MacIntyre has to stop seeing the best in his players and start seeing the worst.
The Buffs need to be challenged. They need to be pushed and motivated.
They may be playing hard, but apparently they’re not playing hard enough. That’s on the coach.
Coach MacIntyre needs to stop being the good guy, the guy who carries you when you’ve fallen down, and he needs to start being the guy who kicks you until you get up and move yourself.
A winner doesn’t feel sorry for themselves when they lose; they get angry.
