Buffs Select Team Captains For 2017
March 18, 2017 | Football, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — For the second year in a row and just third time in Colorado football history, a player has been elected as a team captain for a third time in his career.
CU senior running back Phillip Lindsay was one of six players selected Thursday as team captains for the 2017 season. He will be joined by two other seniors who served as captains in 2016, TE/DE George Frazier and Jeromy Irwin; another player who served as a captain in 2015, senior OLB Derek McCartney (when it was 12-man leadership group that rotated as game captains); and two first-time captains, senior safety Afolabi Laguda and junior ILB Rick Gamboa.
Lindsay, who served as a team captain in 2015 and 2016, joins former teammate Sefo Liufau as one of just three players in CU history to serve three years as captain. The first was Pat Carney, who did it 123 years prior to Liufau, in 1891-92-93.
Head coach Mike MacIntyre has a two-stage process to select the captains. The voting is limited to players who have been in the program at least 18 months (one year if a junior college transfer).
All six players have been instrumental in the Colorado program's turnaround, one that last year produced a 10-4 record, a Pac-12 South title and CU's first bowl appearance since 2007.
Lindsay last season rushed for 1,189 yards and 16 touchdowns, CU's first 1,000-yard rushing season since 2010. Frazier, who is playing offense and defense this spring, was named by coaches last year as the team's Eddie Crowder Award winner, given to a player who displays outstanding leadership. Irwin, a sixth-year senior, was a second-team All-Pac-12 selection last fall.
McCartney missed most of last season after suffering a torn ACL in the third week of the season at Michigan (he had an 18-yard fumble return for a touchdown against the Wolverines), but the prior year had 70 tackles, including five sacks. Gamboa, who stepped into a starting role early in the 2015 season, was third on the team in tackles last year with 79, including eight third-down stops as well as a forced fumble and fumble recovery. Laguda, who started all 14 games at free safety last year, was second on the team in tackles (80) and also had one interception, a forced fumble and fumble recovery, and six pass break-ups.
Perhaps equally importantly, all have served as leaders on the field as well as in the weightroom, classroom and strength and conditioning workouts.
Along with the three Buffs who have served as captains three times, only a handful of others have served as captains twice. That list includes Harry Gamble (1894-96), ILB Barry Remington (1985-86), TB Bobby Purify (2003-04), QB Joel Klatt (2004-05), ILB Addison Gillam (2014-15), WR Nelson Spruce (2014-15) and ILB Kenneth Olugbode (2015-16).
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
