Opinion: Losing more than a game

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Sometimes, life throws us curveballs.

You see a lady slip on wet pavement and you laugh. Then you realize it’s your father.

Or your name is Steve Bartman. Then, all of a sudden, it’s Steve (expletive) Bartman.

Or get this: You’re a big-shot collegiate athlete at a big school — and you’re the butt of every joke.

Colorado Buffaloes football players know what I’m talking about. And it’s not the curveball that CU quarterback Cody Hawkins dribbled over to Texas’ Earl Thomas for a 92-yard touchdown that I speak of.

Before Saturday night’s kickoff in Austin, Texas, ESPN college football analyst Lou Holtz beat up the Buffs worse than Texas could even imagine doing.

“Colorado might want to get on the buses at halftime cause it is going to be ugly,” Holtz said as host Rece Davis and fellow analyst Mark May broke out into cries of laughter.

And that’s when it hits you. You know you’re in a worse place than Jason Giambi’s wedged G-string when Holtz rags on you like that. It’s not like Bobby Knight, who is feared by children, was saying that. It was the man who once said, “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song.”

Really? Did the bird sing its little song after you set it on fire?

Holtz wasn’t the only one either.

On Saturday’s College GameDay, CU alumnus Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso talked about the CU vs. Texas game for 9.6 seconds. In the first 3.2 seconds, Fowler asked, “Does anyone want to take Colorado in this one?” For the remainder of the time, Corso and Herbstreit replied with laughter.

Analysts, fans, old people, young people and writers (except for us sensitive ones) don’t see CU as a team that is struggling, but as a team that they struggle not to laugh at.

After the loss to Toledo, it got so ugly that Colorado linebacker Marcus Burton, a co-captain, showed up for geology class only to have his professor single him out saying the study of rocks was as exciting as watching the Buffs play.

Hey man, he’s just a kid. Why don’t you go after Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy? He’s 40! (Gundy’s really 42 years old now).

Look what I’m reduced to; I’m no better than any of them. And this constant mockery of the CU football team will be much more detrimental than any sort of terrible play out on the field.

What kind of recruits do you expect to get when the whole nation has you as the new Baylor of the Big 12 Conference? What kind of recruits do you expect to get when your opponents take you as serious as a bye week?

“When everybody talks about how bad Colorado is all week, it’s really hard to go out there and take them serious,” Texas head coach Mack Brown said after walloping the Buffs 38-14.

So here are the leftover recruits we can look forward to for the 2010 season:
1. Wide receivers who enjoy a bullpen of undersized quarterbacks instead of just one. The suspense: You never know which one is going to peak his head through the offensive lineman’s armpit and smile at you.
2. Blood relatives. But don’t trust them staying around. Josh Smith left his nephew Darrell Scott for rap music and Hawkins left the field for the bench. Word on the street is head coach Dan Hawkins might be leaving soon too if the season doesn’t turn around.
3. Australians…well somebody had to say it.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Brent Wilson New at Brent.new@colorado.edu.