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Grading the Week: CU Buffs football’s return to national relevance is the greatest Christmas present we could ask for

December 24, 2022 by The Denver Post

It’s easy to start questioning life choices after you’ve refreshed Travis Hunter’s YouTube page for the 296th time on a late December evening. Then the No. 1 overall recruit from the Class of 2022 throws on a CU Buffs hat, and all of that existential anguish quickly fades into complete bliss.

CU football — A+

It has long been the Grading the Week staff’s belief that the CU football program has all of the elements needed to thrive on the national stage.

Top-notch academics? Check.

Loyal and engaged fanbase? Double check.

Postcard picturesque campus? Have you seen the tiled roofs rising toward the Flatirons?

And if we’re talking about iconic game day atmospheres, there’s only one stadium across this vast and beautiful land where a live buffalo runs out onto the field twice every home game. Yup, that’s in Boulder.

All of which is to say we never bought into the notion espoused by national pundits that the CU football job is a place where good coaches go to die — especially now that university leaders have decided they’re all-in on making this work. Up until a few weeks ago, that was the only thing blocking the Buffs from reliving the dream of the ’90s. Well, that and a head coach capable of making CU football interesting again.

Now that Deion Sanders is walking the well-maintained streets of Boulder, the latter is no longer an issue, either.

This week’s signing day festivities provided the latest example, as Coach Prime flipped a running back who was headed to Notre Dame, got the top cornerback of the Class of 2023 to rethink his commitment to Miami and brought the most-coveted recruit from 2022 with him from Jackson State to the Front Range.

This is what the future looks like in Boulder, dear readers, and we dare not avert our eyes from its glory.

Folsom Field should be more than an annual gathering place for retired Dead Heads to enjoy Colorado’s legal substances. That it’s about to be that again may be the greatest Christmas present of this holiday season.

Troy Calhoun — B+

Now for the coach who’s already done it on the field.

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    Keeler: Travis Hunter teased. Blake Purchase went quiet. Under Coach Prime, CU Buffs football signing days will never be the same.

Thanks to Thursday night’s 30-15 demolition of Baylor in the Armed Forces Bowl, the long-time leader of the Air Force football program has now achieved something nobody before him has done at AFA: post three double-digit win seasons over a four-year span.

In fact, Calhoun has as many double-digit win seasons (5) over 16 years as all of his Air Force predecessors combined following this fall’s 10-3 season. The great Fisher DeBerry is next in line with four in 23 seasons at the Academy.

Granted, Calhoun’s program has yet to reach the heights DeBerry did when he led the Falcons to a pair of top-15 finishes in the AP poll, including a No. 8 ranking to close out the 1985 season. But the consistency with which he has won at Air Force is just as remarkable, with Calhoun and DeBerry now tied for the top winning percentage (.608) by an Air Force coach.

If we have but one quibble with Calhoun’s 2022, it’s this: If ever there was a year for the Falcons to win the Mountain West title, with Boise State down, CSU rebuilding and Fresno State hobbled by injuries, this would’ve been it.

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