Colorado University Athletics
Brooks: Buffs Benefit From Embree's Letter Campaign
November 11, 2011 | Football, B.G. Brooks
BOULDER - The goals were common ones - team building and bridging the gaps between freshmen and seniors. Near the midway point of a football season headed in the wrong direction, Colorado Coach Jon Embree knew exactly what he was doing - he just didn't know what the outcome might be.
Realizing how fast a season begins rolling from mid-October to its conclusion, Embree had his freshmen write seniors a letter, assuring the upperclassmen that their efforts in a season slipping away would remain solid through late November. Embree also wanted the newbies to let the seniors know the impact they had had on them in their first seasons of college football.
Said Embree: "Those are the guys that need to continue to have the sense of urgency, the younger guys because you always think that your time here will never end, you think you are here forever."
But that never happens. Instead, it always happens like this: football seasons and careers shift into overdrive and suddenly, with what seems like no notice, are within a couple of weekends of being over. CU's 28 seniors close their home careers Saturday against Arizona (12:30 p.m., FCS-Pacific). If they fail to win a game at Folsom Field, it will be the first time that a CU team has gone winless at the stadium that opened in 1924.
The Buffs are 0-4 in season No. 88 at Folsom, a season that has trickled to three remaining games and at this point has produced but one win, a current seven-game losing streak and the continuation of a road losing streak that stretches back to 2007 (22 games). CU is 1-9 overall and 0-6 in its first year in the Pac-12 Conference.
Embree saw all the letters and had freshmen read some of them the night before the Buffs played at Washington on Oct. 15. Right away, Embree said with a grin earlier this week, he knew he had entered the era of texts and Tweets. He called it "an interesting exercise to say the least. Not that I'm Mr. Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee champ, but golly. These guys . . . I don't know if 'Wheel of Fortune' will make it that much longer with this generation coming up.
"Some of them you thought you were reading a letter to Santa when they were little. The writing, the handwriting and all of that . . . it was different."
Questionable penmanship and atrocious spelling aside, many of the letters also were moving. Freshman receiver Tyler McCulloch, an under-recruited prospect with a mountainous upside, wrote to senior receiver Toney Clemons, a third-year transfer from Michigan who has moved in and out of Embree's good graces. But during the last month Clemons has inched toward the level of play his coaches believed he could hit.
"It was a humbling experience for me, a really good chance to express how I really feel toward him," McCulloch said. "I came in during the summer and right away looked up to Toney because he was a guy at my position and a guy I was going to learn from.
"From Day One, I looked up to him, and I don't know if he really knew that. I don't know how he saw me originally through camp, but we ended up splitting time and then I got the job. I wanted to be able to inspire him, and since then I've seen Toney do so much more to increase his game. He's been playing incredible lately. I don't know if I was a part of that, but it would definitely make me feel good if I was."
Clemons might not have appreciated McCulloch during August camp when Clemons' focus appeared to be AWOL and he was dropping almost as many balls as he caught. But Clemons appreciates him now, which might be a testament to personal growth during a difficult season for everyone.
"He was thrown into a position that was tough for him," Clemons recalled. "It really wasn't tough for me. I'm not going to be selfish about it and say it was a hard situation for me. It was a harder situation for him. He needed somebody to look up to and groom him. When I wasn't performing the way I should have, he was thrown into that fire prematurely.
"He had to grow up fast, and for him to write me a letter and get his perspective on me and how I handled the situation and how I came to work every day and practiced and helped him, that was a big thing - something I really didn't think he noticed. To have him read it in front of the team, it was an honor to hear it. He's the future of this position - the 'X' receiver for Colorado. I hope he takes anything I taught him and runs with it."
When Clemons was a freshman at Michigan, he "looked up to certain wideouts on our team . . . I was fortunate enough to relieve those guys." But unlike McCulloch, he had never had the opportunity to write a letter to a particular senior. He called Embree's freshman-to-senior letter idea "a good touch, something new. I wish I had the chance to say it to the guys I came up with above me . . . it makes an impact on a person.
"I'm glad Coach Embree took the time out to have those guys read their letters and show us they're in it for us as well, and that we're not alone as a class, that they feel our pain and are fighting for us as well. It really meant a lot. I think it's one of the highlights of my season to hear that."
The letter-writing exercise was a good one for McCulloch and the other freshmen because it reinforced the "all-in" atmosphere Embree is trying to create in CU football. It also let the freshmen know the responsibility that awaits them as seniors. McCulloch said it inspired him "to be a role model for any of the younger guys coming in and continue to help them do whatever it is they're doing."
Hearing underclassmen before Senior Day speak of "sending them out in the right way" can become clich+¬d, but it doesn't seem that way for freshmen like McCulloch. "These seniors have been here four or five years; they've worked hard and they definitely deserve to go out the right way," he said. "Coach Embree talks about it all the time. It's been unfortunate this year with some of the losses, but these are some great guys. They've been good with the freshmen. They deserve to go out with a win."
The letters are bound to be among the better memories Embree takes away from his first season as a college head coach. They made him realize the number "of guys that deeply care about each other and about their teammates. I was surprised about how selfless a lot of these guys were," he said. "Especially for being so young and especially for some of these guys being thrust into the situation that they are in because of injuries and maybe not coming in thinking that they were going to play as much as they had or the role that they have played in.
"It was good to see it. It validated that a lot of the kids we bought in in the last class are the kind of kids that we can continue to build around and are about the team. That's important; we have to be about each other if we are going to be successful."
Embree began talking to the seniors very early on about their legacies at CU. With three games left and a 1-9 record, there's no chance of leaving with a winning season or a postseason trip. But there still are chances to achieve success - namely avoiding becoming the first Buffs team to go winless at Folsom and unloading that awful 22-game road losing streak for the 2012 Buffs. Ever the optimist, Embree sees the final two games, both on the road, as a chance to start a two-game road win streak.
Probably the biggest question for the season's final three weeks is how much the Buffs have left in the tank after opening Pac-12 play with a devastating 31-27 loss to Washington State in the final minutes, then being outscored 235-64 in their next five games. Four of those five games were against ranked opponents, with no ranked foes among the final three.
Clemons, who has made 13 receptions for 209 yards and three touchdowns in the last two weeks, said he recognizes the last three games as winnable, but added, "I honestly prepare for every game as if we're going to win and we're capable of winning . . . I feel like we can go on a three-game streak, but I'm sure those programs are saying the same thing and looking at us on the schedule in the same way."
He and his fellow seniors, he said, "just want to go out and be remembered as a group of guys that went out every day and was unwavering, was competitive and showed younger guys, be an example of 'don't let this happen to you; you guys have a great opportunity to go out, make a statement and an impact on a conference that doesn't think much of us now.'
"Even if the numbers aren't there to show to the fan base and the media, I still feel there was success this season because as a class we learned a lot about each other's trials and tribulations and that'll make us better people. That's what hardship does for somebody; you grow from it and you produce from it and you get better."
Embree's strongest recollections of the first senior class he coached will be "the 'want-to' in this group, the adversity they've faced," he said. "They've played hurt, they've played beat up . . . I will remember them as a group that really wanted to try and get things done and help set this program on the right path. There is still some stuff out there for them and I expect they will have a great effort on Saturday and do what we can do to get them to sing that fight song afterwards."
Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU
