The Colorado Buffaloes Are A Competitively Bad Football Team

Here are some of the stats for the Colorado Buffaloes, a team that just sees the wheels fall off way too often this year.

• 18.8 points per game, last in the conference.  (17 tonight)
• 90 rushing yards per game, last in the conference. (135 rush yards tonight thanks to the return of the lovable Speedy Stewart.)
• 185 rushing yards per game given up, 5.4 rushing yards per carry, last in the conference (235 tonight).
• 431 total yards per game given up, next to last in the conference (561 tonight).
• 335 total yards per game, next to last in the conference (384 tonight).
• 38.3 points given up per game, last in the conference. (42 tonight)

Despite all those stats, when I watch them, I don't get the feeling I'm watching a bad football team. Just an incomplete one that plays bad. So I'm watching a bad football team. But it don't feel like that.

And they are incomplete. Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, Arizona State have all suffered their share of injuries, but nowhere has the impact been felt more dramatically than in Boulder. The Buffs have lost a lot of their players, especially in the secondary (should be self-evident to you after watching them get shredded by the relentless USC pass attack), and they just have no chance to play well for four quarters.

Colorado scored a touchdown on their first drive. I was so proud of them, because I knew the slaughter that was to follow would be hard on the soul. Not that they cared. They kept on rocking.

This 25 point loss tonight was one of their better performances, and this involved two blocked Buffaloes field goals and Matt Barkley throwing fade routes against one-on-one coverage half the night waiting for some to stick (which they inevitably did). Tough watching for any Buff fan, although to their credit the crowd was totally invested in a total beatdown of their team. Maybe they've accepted their team is bad and rolling with it--that's the type of commitment Larry Scott needs out of his new conference compatriots!

Colorado has had some bad luck with injuries, have decent offensive weapons in Stewart, Toney Cleamons and Paul Richardson, and they've just endured their brutal Stanford-Washington-Oregon-ASU-USC stretch, and had chances to beat Cal and Washington State, so things should be looking up from here. UCLA, Arizona and Utah are left. There's gotta be a win to pick up there somewhere, right?

But if this continues, someone please put Jon Embree and this poor team out of its misery and get it to 2012 already. They deserve better luck than this winless Pac-12 slate.