Colorado University Athletics
Honoring The Legacy: Buffs To Wear Black And Gold
November 04, 2015 | Football, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — The respect for tradition lives on with the Colorado football team.
Wednesday afternoon, CU head coach Mike MacIntyre announced that the Buffs have decided to change their uniform plan for Saturday's game against Stanford and will wear the traditional gold helmets, black jerseys and gold pants.
Last night's #30for30 moved our players;they chose to change the uniform plan and honor the legacy with our traditional uniforms...
— Coach Mike MacIntyre (@CoachMikeMac) November 4, 2015
The “30for30” reference, of course, is to the ESPN production “The Gospel According to Mac,” which first aired Tuesday night. The show documents the ultra-successful — and sometimes turbulent — Buffs era under former head coach Bill McCartney, who led the Buffs to a national title in 1990.
MacIntyre said a large group of CU players gathered in the Champions Center auditorium to watch the debut showing Tuesday, and more watched it from their homes.
“They were really inspired by it,” MacIntyre said. “A lot of guys have talked to me about it.”
Earlier this year, CU unveiled a new set of uniform combinations that allowed for dozens of combinations with three jerseys, four pants and four helmet options. The Buffs have worn a number of those combinations this year, but have sported the traditional gold helmets, black jerseys and gold pants just once, against UMass in the home opener.
This week, they'll break that combination out again, a decision spurred by “The Gospel According to Mac.”
MacIntyre said he hasn't had a chance to watch the entire show, but plans to do so Thursday night.
“It's really neat, having gotten to know Coach McCartney in a lot closer friendship basis over the last three years and really spending a lot of time with him at different times,” MacIntyre said. “And then getting to coach with one of his grandsons (T.C. McCartney) and coach one of his grandsons (Derek McCartney), that's been really neat.”
MacIntyre is quite familiar with the McCartney Era. As a player at Georgia Tech in the late 1980s, he watched with interest as the Yellow Jackets and Buffs vied for a national title down the stretch run of the 1990 season.
“I watched those games closely,” MacIntyre said. “I remember watching, I think it was the Citrus Bowl, where Georgia Tech beat Nebraska that morning; so all of us Georgia Tech guys were staying up and we watched the Orange Bowl until the very end.”
Colorado, of course, beat Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl and laid claim to the Associated Press national title, along with coming in No. 1 in several other polls. The Buffs were prevented, however, from making it unanimous when the coaches' poll selected Georgia Tech.
MacIntyre joked that he now has a connection to “both” national titles. “They're both my places,” he said. “I can claim both of them. Meeting all those former players that I've met through the last few years has really been exciting. This week is the Hall of Fame week and you've got a couple of those guys coming back that were in that era.”
Former Buff wide receiver Mike Pritchard — voted as the 1990 team MVP — will be inducted into the CU Athletic Hall of Fame on Thursday.
