(Written by kencraw)

(I didn’t get a chance to re-watch the game yesterday like I normally do. I’ll put that post up as soon as I get that chance (probably Tuesday night), to be part II)

Wow… what a game. I’m still parsing in my mind everything that happened. A few thoughts:

• What would last year’s team record be?: I’ve tried to figure out in my mind what last year’s team would have done against Fresno State and this Colorado team. Did they have something on defense that this year’s team didn’t and they would have handled ‘the Breakthrough in Boulder’ better and not needed the heroics of this year? Or do they struggle just as much and lose? Looking at the other game, do they lose to Fresno State, giving up the ghost early on a mistake like Maynard’s? Obviously it’s speculation, but there’s an argument for everything from 2-0 like this year to 0-2 and anything in between. At this point I lean towards 1-1, the loss coming in Boulder both because this is not last year’s Colorado team and the altitude would have affected last year’s team just as much.
• Don’t forget the altitude!: I feel like a broken record on this one… but make sure you judge everything in the light of the altitude. There was no doubt looking at the team, in particular their faces, that they were affected by the thin air. And when you’re playing in pain and winded, certain things break down. You don’t recover from over-pursuing as easily (screen plays). You’re just not as fast (the two big receptions by Richardson). You struggle with the little things (the dropped passes). It’s harder to keep your intensity up (lack of pressure on Hansen and the difficulty of players getting off blocks). It’s harder to get the ball up in the air (extra points)… HA!… just checking that you were paying attention. There’s no excuse for Tavecchio. Back to the serious point, does that mean we can ignore all those issues? Absolutely not. But it does mitigate SOME of the issues. Don’t be surprised if some of them look like anomalies in a few weeks and others look to be the plague of the team. My guesses, anomalies: long pass plays, screen plays, difficulty getting off blocks. Plagues: pressure on QB, dropped balls, and God help me, extra points.
• The altitude and playing with heart: The altitude issues are what make me particularly impressed with the heart of this team. Despite the pain, despite the gasping for air, this team kept giving it everything they had. They kept at it and had the confidence that they could make the adjustments to slow down Colorado and to get back over the top. Looking back at the Tedford era I can only think of a few games that matched the heart of this one, and they’re all a long time ago: 2003 USC, 2004 USC (yes, a loss, but they played with heart), 2005 Oregon (another loss), 2003 Insight bowl, maybe the 2006 Washington game, although we were in such a funk early and should have easily won, it’s hard to compare. Point being, this ranks right up with the best heart games of the last decade. Definitely in the top-5.
• Can we get a coach to work extra hard with CJ on blocking assignments?: As much as I’m still a defender of Isi, we need CJ Anderson in a big way and we need him to be able to be in on passing plays (so we’re not tipping our hat when we bring him in). Can we clone coach M and give one to CJ for the week? Anderson is going to be a great addition and I can’t wait, I’m just not that patient, for him to slowly absorb the playbook and his blocking assignments. I’m not sure why Debo is not coming along, but I’ve still never seen anything in him that makes me think he has the inside power game that Anderson does.

More thoughts coming later.