Colorado University Athletics
Brooks: Huskies Show Buffs Major Work Is Needed
October 16, 2011 | Football, B.G. Brooks
SEATTLE - The next time the Colorado Buffaloes visit Husky Stadium, one facelift will have been completed - and we're guessing another will be well underway, maybe even in the final stages.
Saturday marked CU's last trip to the University of Washington's scenic but deteriorating football venue - in its current form. Upon completion of this season, a $250-million renovation will begin, shifting the Huskies' home games to CenturyLink Field in Seattle for 2012. In fact, the Washington-Washington State game this Nov. 26 (aka, the Apple Cup) will be played at the Seahawks' home field to expedite U-Dub's construction project.
As for the one facing CU coach Jon Embree, the blueprint demands one day at a time, one weekend at a time, one crisis at a time, one recruiting class at a time . . . And while the renovation is underway, it's sometimes painful to watch the heavy lifting.
It turned into that kind of afternoon Saturday on Embree's 46th birthday, one he won't soon forget. As the sun finally burned through the mid-October morning's clouds and glinted off of the boats on Lake Washington, UW swiftly (and rather effortlessly) pulled away from a 7-7 first-quarter tie and scorched CU 52-24.
Even though his team had lost three straight, yielding nearly 40 points a game in the process, Embree had approached this one with a birthday boy's optimism. "It's all about belief," he told me in a brief elevator encounter on Saturday morning in the team's downtown Seattle hotel.
And for a short time - when CU answered UW's game-opening touchdown drive with one of its own to tie the score - the Buffs appeared to have rekindled some belief in themselves. Just as quickly, though, after the Huskies responded once more and the Buffs faltered, this afternoon was spiraling out of control.
After that all-too-brief shootout, what Embree and his offensive staff deemed a credible game plan was scrapped. "When they're scoring every time they have the ball, you have to start changing what you're going to do . . . they forced us to do something else," said Embree, alluding to the Huskies scoring on all six of their first-half possessions (five touchdowns, one field goal).
"Offensively we thought we had a good game plan, but with what was happening, we couldn't stay with (it) . . . we had to go with more of a shootout mode."
Injuries also forced the Buffs into a change-on-the-fly mode, a switch that's occurring far too often this season. Tailback Rodney "Speedy" Stewart and inside linebacker Doug Rippy - each a cornerstone of their units - left the game early with knee injuries and aren't likely to return for next Saturday's home game against No. 9 Oregon.
Their injuries were added to a list that already has reached outrageous proportions. Some of the players on it - Embree mentioned offensive tackle David Bakhtiari playing less than a week after wrist surgery and safety Ray Polk probably needing wrist surgery when the season ends - have refused to take a spot on the sideline.
"I'm not depressed (over the injuries)," Embree said in response to a reporter's post-game question. "(But) when you think things can't get any worse with injuries, it does . . . guys are still going out there (with injuries) and competing and playing hard. Unfortunately we've had a ton of injuries, a ton of injuries."
When he was asked if he could see "a light at the end of the tunnel," Embree smiled and answered, "Define light . . ." But he was able to list at least a couple of illuminating circumstances - freshman punter Darragh O'Neill's 40.5-yard average and freshman Will Oliver's 46-yard field goal. OK, that's two. "There's always something, I guess," Embree said.
But back to the belief thing . . . UW, which now has won eight of nine games dating to the end of the last season (5-1 this year), entered this game believing a win was a given - kind of like finding a Starbucks on Pike Street. CU has been hammered to the opposite end of the belief spectrum. Not only are the Buffs physically depleted, four consecutive losses haven't left them in such good psychological shape either.
"It's always difficult when you're losing football games, it doesn't matter the level," said senior receiver Kyle Cefalo, who returned after missing the Stanford game with a bad elbow and caught the touchdown pass that give his offense that glimmer (7-7) of first-quarter hope.
I asked Cefalo, a gritty former walk-on who finally earned a scholarship this fall, if he could see the losses beginning to wear on Embree. This is how he answered: "I know he's disappointed because he expects a lot out of us. And he should expect a lot out of us because we're a good football team with a lot of good players. But it doesn't matter if you have a lot of guys committed; a lot is not the right number. You have to have everyone that's completely in.
"Coach Embree and his staff deserve to have everyone completely in. They trust in us and are devoted to us and believe in us. It's time for us to believe in each other, time for a lot of people to believe in themselves. If you're out there, you're out there for a reason. You have to play like that."
Then, Cefalo repeated a refrain that now, unfortunately, has become this team's mantra: "There's a lot to play for still; for a lot of us this is our last hurrah. Me personally, my days playing football are numbered . . . it's hard to hit the 'erase' button in your mind and get ready for next week, but before you know it, it's Saturday again.
"It's easy to give up. The hard thing is to fight through it. It's always easy to throw in your chips, take down your flag and say we're done. I'm not about that and this coaching staff is not about that. And this team is not about that."
Husky Stadium's locale and tradition put it on a short list of college football stadiums that create career memories. Very few venues can match its scenery or the from-the-clouds view it offers of the field. I'm told none of the aesthetics will be lost to renovation, but we'll see on CU's next visit - whenever it's scheduled. Future cross-division Pac-12 play is TBD.
Saturday's visit was nothing like my first to Husky Stadium in 1989. The trip was unforgettable; I can still vividly recall the Buffs, as a team, on one knee at midfield with gold helmets in the air, pointing skyward in a tribute to their late quarterback Sal Aunese.
During a bye week two weekends before the Seattle trip, Aunese died of cancer, with the trip to Washington being CU's first game since his passing. The Buffs rolled a good Huskies team 45-28, and as it was in Embree's first visit here as CU's head coach, the domination wasn't accurately reflected in the final numbers.
UW has a timeline - 2013 - to complete Husky Stadium's makeover, and Embree wants the Buffs back on line and Pac-12 ready at least that quickly. With any luck, CU's next trip to Seattle will bring a convergence - new Husky Stadium, new (and improved) CU football team. Of both renovations, after Saturday, the most difficult should be obvious.
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
