Football's Big Year
Bowl-bound Buffs deliver best season in a decade
If you were following along on Twitter this fall, #TheRise quickly turned into #TheRiseIsReal.
By the midway point of Mike MacIntyre’s fourth year as CU’s head football coach, the team had made its biggest splash in a decade and MacIntyre was a candidate for Coach of the Year.
Clinching a bowl berth for the first time since 2007 — by Week 8 — tends to draw attention.
As CU raced to a 7-2 start, MacIntyre was hardly the only one getting noticed. Five Buffs earned Pac-12 Player of the Week honors through the first eight weeks of the season. Quarterbacks Sefo Liufau (Econ’17) and Steven Montez (StComm’19) earned awards in September; Phillip Lindsay (Comm’17) won in October.
True freshman kicker Davis Price (A&S’20) was named Pac-12 Special Teams Player of the Week after making the first kicks of his college career against Oregon State, including a 54-yard field goal — the longest ever by a CU freshman.
Price, of Evergreen, Colo., followed the fantastic start by getting a lift to the Buffs’ next game, against USC, from his dad — a pilot who flew the team plane to Los Angeles.
Strong safety Tedric Thompson (Soc’17) also earned Pac-12 honors after hauling in two interceptions in a 10-5 victory at Stanford Oct. 22.
A week earlier, the Buffs handily beat Arizona State during Homecoming Weekend.
Reflecting the strong season, CU returned to the national rankings for the first time since Nov. 2005 and also made their debut in the College Playoff Rankings, at No. 15.
Photo Cliff Grassmick/Daily Camera