Columnist Steve Guiremand: Buffs out for revenge

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Sept. 1, 2000 | 12:01 p.m.

Steve Guiremand covers college football for the Sun. His Around Campus notebook appears Friday during the football season.

Expect emotions to really be a Mile High on Saturday when Colorado and Colorado State get together for their yearly instate meeting at Mile High Stadium in Denver.

Colorado and head coach Gary Barnett haven't forgotten last year's embarrassingly one-sided 41-14 loss to Sonny Lubick's Rams, a defeat which spoiled Barnett's much trumpeted debut for the Buffs. CSU led, 41-0, with 8:49 to play.

Barnett has been pulling out all of the motivational tricks for this year's rematch. Each day during fall practice he has worn a T-shirt counting down the days to the CSU contest.

He also hinted that he thought that Lubick was the mystery coach who blabbed to Sports Illustrated in its college preseason issue and sized up Colorado in not exactly the most glowing of terms. Lubick denied the allegations.

For the record, here is what was said about the Buffs by an opposing coach: "They just don't have the weapons they used to, a Michael Westbrook or a Kordell Stewart. (Tailback Cortlen) Johnson is a steady runner, but he doesn't hit it up in there real hard. And who's going to play quarterback? (Sophomore Zac Colvin). ...

"I don't know if they're patient enough to just run the ball. The fans in Colorado get bored with that. They're used to slinging it around. ... Their defense is raggedy, inconsistent. People can run the football on them."

Ouch!

Still, SI decided to rank Barnett's squad No. 25, one spot behind the Rams.

"Yeah, I think we did (overlook Colorado State)," Buffs offensive tackle Victor Rogers said. "I think a lot of us expected to go in there and beat them because we were Colorado. They worked hard, and they came out and punched us in the mouth and kept punching us in the mouth until finally the score was out of reach."

It'll be interesting to see how much better the Buffs are at counterpunching with the Rams this time around.

One of those 13 could be Cheyenne High School and Sun Super 11 product Lynn McGruder.

The 6-2, 300-pound McGruder is listed third on the depth chart at left defensive tackle behind junior John Henderson and sophomore Rashad Moore.

The Vols host Southern Miss on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. on ESPN.

So what happens in the Hokies' season-opener against Georgia Tech on Sunday? The game gets cancelled because of severe lightning around Lane Stadium with one bolt even destroying a car parked near one of the end zones.

The big question after the cancellation is not how much the loss of a chance to shine on national TV will hurt Vick's Heisman chances or why Georgia Tech wimped out and wouldn't reschedule the game in December. It's who were those hundreds of knuckleheads sitting on metal bleachers waiting for the storm to pass?

Maybe they were waiting for Ned Beatty to show up to host a Deliverance festival?

Once around the MWC

Once around the nation