Another Take on Boulder

Good Morning Cougar Fans, I hope you are well rested on this fine Tuesday morning. I took yesterday off of work when making my plans to go to Boulder, and it may be one of the finest vacation scheduling decisions in my life.

Sunday you had a chance to get Longball’s take on his roadtrip to Boulder, and so I thought it would only be appropriate if I did the same. Although my take isn’t so much about the game, but a take on Boulder and the University of Colorado itself. Read the jump for more.

DaniBuff and I got into town quite late on Thursday with the intentions on doing a bit of site seeing on Friday morning, so we hit the sack quite early after getting all sqaured away in our rental house.

Friday morning we hit the road and headed about 35 miles northwest out of Boulder through the winding mountains and to the beautiful mountain town of Estes Park. Nestled in the Rockies with a beautiful stream running through it, this place reminded me a lot of Leavenworth, minus the whole Barvarian theme.

Our main destination upon arrival was the beautiful Stanley Hotel. Built in the early 1900s by an heir to the Stanley Steemcar fortune, this gorgeous Neo-Gregorian style hotel has quite a bit of colorful history. While teaching writing at CU, Stephen King and his wife stayed here for a while, and it was this hotel that inspired his classic, The Shining.The Stanley Kubrick version of the tale was not filmed here, although the made-for-tv version in 1997 was filmed here.

The hotel is said to be incredibly haunted, and even offers guest Ghost Tours every few hours to check out the spots that are said to be the most haunted. While we were not there for an actual tour, many paranormal experts have visited the hotel in search of spook.

One of Dani’s friends had visited the hotel a few months prior and recommended we post up at the bar to try their famous Bacon Infused Bloody Marys. It doesn’t take much twisting of the arm to get me in the mood for a Bloody Mary, and so we did. At the bar, I noticed a framed copy of a newspaper on the wall commerating Neil Armstrong and Co. landing on the moon and then was informed the hotel was used in Dumb & Dumber.

We’ve landed on the moon!

It turns out this hotel was actually the site for that scene, and at the very end of the scene, there is a shot of Carrey running out the bar. You will see a woman sitting at the bar in an orange shirt, and that is the exact spot Dani and I were sitting! After finishing our wonderful concoctions, we departed back for Boulder to explore campus.

Before leaving, I had been told the best way to beat altitude sickness was to drink lots of fluids. I prepared myself by drinking a ton of water, Gatorade, and even Airborne. Unfortunately that was not enough as I felt very woosey the majority of the afternoon as Dani and I departed for The Hill. Boulder is very similar to Pullman in that their campus is connected to the off-campus portion of town that contains shops, bars, team apparel stores and Greek Row. Directly below The Hill is the Pearl St Mall area that is similar to downtown Pullman except a lot larger.

Upon reaching The Hill, we stopped at The Sink for a few cold beers, and immediately my altitude sickness disappeared. Funny how that works. Then we marched on to K’s China for their infamous drink, The Volcano. Sitting on the roof top deck of the restaurant, consuming this drink that reminded me a lot of Pete’s Wileys, I couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty of the Flatiron Mountains in the foreground.

From K’s Rooftop Deck.

I called him Alex Hoffman-Ellis, but he didn’t get it. Your legs get wobbly after one.

One thing that struck me was how calm the area was for being the Friday afternoon, before the school’s first Pac 12 game. Afterall, this was the school recently dubbed by Playboy Magazine as the #1 Party School in America. I have seen Pullman a lot wilder in the past month, than I saw the CU Campus at any point during our stay.

Coming into the weekend, Dani had been telling me about all these amazing places we had to eat. How they are the best restaurants around. I was thinking to myself it isn’t possible for there to be so many great spots to eat, but they did not disappoint! From the burritos at Illegal Pete’s, the sandwiches at Brooklyn Heros and Half Fast Subs, to the footlong slices of Pizza at Cosmo’s, I left thoroughly impressed. The amount of stores and restuarants here baffled me, but they all had an underlying theme. They were all incredibly welcoming. One drunk coed even looked at me as she walked through a gang of jubilant Cougar Fans on Friday night and said “why are there so many of you here?” to which I replied, “Because that is what we do.”

Everywhere we went, the locals, students, and alumni were very appreciate of all the Cougs who made there trek. Almost every business had this sign in their window.

It was great running into so many of you, Soze and Mama Soze, William (whom I met at Walnut Brewery), Dan C, and Schroeder. I apologize for not making it to the offiicial WSU Tailgate/Celebration, but when you’re busy following the Pied Piper of Boulder through her old stomping grounds, you just have to hold on for the ride.

As kickoff approached and we made our way to Folsom Field, I was smacked by another peril of the altitude, when I got an awful bloody nose. This delayed us from getting to see Ralphie Run, but I was happy when she made her run before the start of the second half.

Run Ralphie, Run!

I’ve now been to ten or so different FCS stadiums from the Pac 12, WAC, C-USA, & the SEC, and I will have to say, Folsom may take the cake as the best all around gameday atmosphere. I didn’t think it was possible for there to be seats closer to the action, than there are in Pullman, but the sideline seats couldn’t be more than seven or eight feet from in-bounds at CU. The fans were incredibly loud and passionate, which made for a very intense home field advantage. There were times where I could not even hear the PA Announcer…even after plays were over.

Since Dani bought tickets a bit late that would have relegated us to the nosebleeds (no pun intended) we chose to sit in the CU Student Section. My good pal Brando and I couldn’t have stuck out more, if we were wearing a green hat with an orange bill. All game we were subject to eye rolls and verbal threats from the drunk and high students. Hell, they were lighting up joints and pipes in the section from start to finish on Saturday! At the end of the game as the students filed out, it sure made for a good time to sing the fight song at a fever pitch. Below are a couple of my notes from the game, although some may have been mentioned already.

Like I said, Like a green hat with an orange bill!

1) It took until the end of the 3rd Quarter for our defense to force CU to punt. Although we would have forced one just before half if Deone Bucannon had not come up with the interception. That is far too long to go letting the opposition convert as many 3rd Downs as they did.

2) Aside from the Matt Kegel “Fumble” in the 2002 Apple Cup, the last two seconds in the 1998 Rose Bowl, and the 5 Second Call on Marcus Moore that cost us a shot at beating an unbeaten #1 Stanford team in Dick Bennett’s first year, the referees truly tried to gift wrap this one for our opponent more than any game I can recall. Although I don’t believe refs truly influence games one way or another, this was the worst officiating job I’ve seen in any sporting event since the 2005 Super Bowl. The Cougs were flagged ten times for 125 yards, while on the season we were averaging less than 60 YPG on just over 6 penalties. Their were enough personal fouls in this one that even Dennis Erickson would have been offended. The personal foul on Daniel Simmons after Paul Richardson came down with the first CU touchdown was a poor call. No call in the game was as bad as the Pass Interference leveled against Simmons late in the game that looked to be the straw that broke our back. When the generally objective Bud Withers and Vince Grippi complain, you know it wasn’t good. I’ve Tweeted Mike Periera to see if he’s taken a look at the call yet.

3) Some great calls by Coach Wulff. When Wulff chose not to review the Rodney Stewart first down conversion on the goal line, possibly saved us a timeout. Leading 20-17 at the time, Colorado had it 3rd and Inches on the two yard line. This play unfolded 30 rows in-front of my group, so I think I had a great look at it. Our defense absolutely stuffed Stewart, but some how they gave him a spot that to Brando and I, was a good 12-18 inches beyond the forward progress. The other decision I loved was for Wulff to kick it deep after the Barton TD with only a little over 2:00 minutes on the clock.

4) Marshall was as cool as the other side of the pillow. One the last two offensive drives, not once did he hurry a snap or a play-call, and was always audibling into the proper call. I lost count of how many times he flip flopped Carl Winston to protect him against the blitz, and holy $#!+, Winston picked up every blitzing back. There was one bad snap and one fumble in each of the final two drives, the second of which came on the final drive against a vicious pash rush, and Marshall calmly picked the ball up, stepped up in pressure, and connected with the dragging Karstetter to convert the down.

5) Speaking of Winston, the young man had a helluva afternoon. On the Barton TD Drive late in the game, he picked up a huge third down spinning of one defender, and running through another. Although he had less than 50 rushing yards on the day, he was great picking up the blitz and made four crucial catches out of the backfield.

6) There must have been two or three third down play calls that resulted in what I believe were bubble screens to either Ratliff or Barton, that yielded zero first downs and a total of one yard. In addition, I believe one or two other drives were ended when we ran draws/counters out of the Pistol formation, which were stuffed for one yard or less.

7) Down 27-17 with about five minutes to go, it looked like we were down for. I was talking with Carp and a few of Dani’s guy friends, and to that point in the game, I thought it was a very even contest (aside from the penalties). As I mentioned above, we killed ourselves early as we allowed them to convert a lot of quick slants on third down. Conversly, we were very bad in third downs up until this mark. To me, the difference in the game is the CU receivers caught passes while the WSU receviers did not. There were far too many key drops amongst Barton, Ratliff and Wilson, the lone exception being Karstetter who was rock solid all day. If we can convert on third down next weekend, I don’t see any reason why we can’t beat the Bruins by a TD or more.

8) My final thought from the game, and it sort of echoes what Brinkhater said in his cameo on Saturday. After losing a couple of weeks ago in SD, this team had two games coming up on the schedule post Bye Week. They were against two teams that barring something huge, will not go bowling and will finish 4, 5 or 6 in the Pac 12 South. After Colorado and UCLA, we play Stanford and Oregon, and unless we pull off something miraculous, those two are likely going to be losses. That means the Cougs need one, if not two, from the Buffs/Bruins. Losing both of those games was a receipe for Wulff to join the 8.75% unemployed in the state. Falling to 2-4, and then likely, 2-6 would have put the Cougs back against the wall to become bowl eligible, with OSU, ASU, Utah and UW looming after Oregon.

All-in-all, an incredible weekend, and a trip I recommend all of you diehards make at some point in the coming years. One other cool thing…

On the way back to Denver, you can make a stop in the City of Golden, and indulge yourself in a self-guided tour of the largest, single-site brewery in the World.

Hello Coors!

It’s beyond time to move past this victory, let’s get ready for UCLA and make it three straight conference road wins! Go Cougs!