“Colorado…”

What’s happening is everybody in the PAC12 has a WTF loss. Everybody.

Utah -> USC
USC -> BYU-Provo
Oregon -> ASU
ASU -> UCLA

And finally….

Washington -> Colorad9

Don’t read too much into a single game. Colorad9 beating Washington says no more about Colorad9 than Utah losing to USC says about Utah. Weird things happen in one-off games.

I think Colorado benefited from beating Stanford (confidence-wise), playing at home, and getting a bye week to get healthy and prepare for UW. This is not the awful Buffs team that beat us inexplicably in 2011. However, this is also not the mediocre 7-4 Utes team that lost that game. We are 10-1 and are formidable on both sides of the ball. I think we win this one handily.

That said, Mel Tucker is doing the right things in Boulder. They’re already out-recruiting us and building a respectable, tough program there. In the coming years, this will not be as easy of a win and a real rivalry might blossom.

Any team that can beat Washington is a team we should take seriously!  Besides, we’ve been beaten by a bad Colorado team before (2011), and this is a better one than that.  They’ve beaten us as many times as we’d beaten UWa, and this year, we both beat UWa.  Colorado has my attention, and my respect.  

Nobody believes this, but Petersen is in an area he’s never been before: Playing with nothing to play for. 

Look, there are few coaches who can get their team up for one game better than Petersen. But week in, week out? He almost always falters. Even at Boise St, they’d have one game, very early in the season, they had to get up for. They were just better than everyone else on their schedule in the WAC. Then a bowl game. 

Now, he has 3-5 games a year you have to be ready for or you will lose. And he struggles in situations where you have to coach every week. 

2014: Stanford, Cal, Oregon, ASU, Colorado, UCLA, Arizona: 2-5. 

2015: Cal, USC, Oregon, Stanford, Arizona, Utah, ASU: 2-5.

2016: They played 3 tough games: Stanford, USC, Utah. Their three games around those games: Arizona (3 wins), Stanford (10 wins), Oregon (4 wins). Cal (5 wins), USC (10 wins), ASU (5 wins). Oregon State (4 wins), Utah (9 wins), Cal (5 wins). So, in his best year ever, he never had back to back games he could lose. 

2017: One tough stretch (Oregon, Stanford, Utah) and two losses. No excuse for the first loss. Loss one: Cal (5 wins), ASU (6 wins), UCLA (5 wins). No excuse for that loss. Loss two: Oregon (7 wins), Stanford (9 wins), Utah (7 wins). Semi-tough stretch, he loses. 

2018: One tough stretch: Oregon (9 wins), Colorado (5 wins), California (7 wins), Stanford (9 wins). Not even that tough of a stretch.  2-2.

When he has back to back games he could lose, he is 8-13. 

So, he hits 2019 and they have nothing to play for. Already bowl eligble, can’t win the north, they are done. We know he struggles when he plays back to back tough games (not elite games, just games vs 6+ win teams, he is 8-13) and you add in they have no shot at the north, no shot at a good bowl game, no shot at anything. 

And it shows. 

Petersen is not a bad coach, not at all. 

BUT he is so overrated. 

I agree. It makes no sense to schedule like that. The Pac-12 really needs to get its stuff together and start actually planning a reasonable schedule for its teams.

I agree. It makes no sense to have a schedule like we do. Whoever is coming up with the Pac-12’s schedules is going to have to fix theirselves majorly.

h

Honestly, if there is a silver lining to Colorado beating Oregon it is that there is no way Utah will underestimate Colorado now.  The Buffs will have the Utes entire focus.  No looking ahead to the PAC12 championship game for 3/4s of the game like we did last year.