Like the good folks in BoCo and in Fort Fun, the kids at the Grading The Week offices have learned, when it comes to college football ’round here, not to a.) jump the gun; and b.) get our hopes up before Halloween. That said, can we raise a toast to the Buffs and Rams on the gridiron before any bad juju rolls in again? This is the first time as of Oct. 21 — three weeks into the witching month — that CU and CSU both had winning records at the same time this late in the season since … 2017. Woof.
Buffs’, Rams’ bowl dreams — A-.
Yes, that’s a cringe-worthy stat, and speaks to some suspect hires these past seven years by your favorite athletic directors. And yes, we’re aware that those CSU late-game-management concerns that’d cropped up at Oregon State reappeared against a rebuilding/young/surprisingly terrible Air Force team.
We’d counter that by reminding everybody that the Mountain West, outside of Boise State and UNLV, isn’t — well, gosh darn it, the league isn’t very good. So the Rams, for all their flaws, still control their destiny on that front. And the Big 12 is every bit the basketball conference it was set up to be, with enough crazy football parity — do we really think BYU and Iowa State are gonna run the table here? — that the Buffs probably aren’t mathematically out of the running for anything yet, especially with Utah, Kansas and Oklahoma State all massively hurt, underachieving, or both.
Ironically, both the Rams and Buffs somehow managed to miss the two best teams in their respective leagues thanks to a quirk of the scheduling gods. Jerry Palm, longtime CFP/BCS guru over at CBS Sports and a friend to GTW, recently projected CU to the Las Vegas Bowl (vs. South Carolina) and CSU to the Idaho Potato Bowl (vs. Ohio). Brett McMurphy over at The Action Network also pegged CU for the Vegas Bowl (vs. Ole Miss) and CSU to the First Responder Bowl (vs. Toledo). So, hey — let’s all just enjoy the warmth of the sun on our bellies while it’s still shining. The snow will start rolling in soon enough.
Ross Colton’s Friday-Wednesday — A
The Avs scored 11 goals in three games — all wins — from Oct. 18 through 23. Colton scored four of them to help an 0-4 start turn into a 4-4 fortnight. Elevating the center to the top line as a winger with Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen created a silver lining around a cloud of Colorado injuries. So, of course …
Colton’s Thursday — D.
… after scoring a one-timer at Utah in the first period, Colton left a 5-1 win in Salt Lake City midway through the second stanza with an apparent hand injury. Justus Annunen aside, why can’t Avs fans have nice things lately?
CU’s WNBA champ — A.
Belated congrats to former Buffs women’s basketball star Jaylyn Sherrod, who can’t do anything in 2024 but win. Having helped power CU to a second-straight Sweet 16 berth all the way back in March, the 5-foot-7 Alabama native kept the good vibes going through the summer and fall, hooking on with the New York Liberty and hanging in with the WNBA franchise through a series of 7-day contracts, and, eventually, an end-of-season contract.
Sherrod would appear in 10 regular-season games and twice more in the postseason for the eventual league champs, who defeated Minnesota to notch a series victory in the WNBA Finals this past Sunday night. Pretty good timing, too — Sherrod celebrated her 23rd birthday on Monday. “Best birthday present I could ask for,” the ex-Buffs guard said on social media.
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