According to the Scout.com Texas A&M site, the Colorado Buffaloes have lost their highest ranked commit of the 2010 cycle. Colorado prep and Littleton high school star RB Mister Jones has decommitted from the University of Colorado and switched his pledge to Texas A&M.

Jones, thought to be a lock because he grew up idolizing the University of Colorado and was considered the man of the house taking care of his siblings, had voiced his concern over the program in prior months but still said he was excited to be a Buff late in the season. But a 3 - 9 record for CU in 2009 shouldn't make this a big surprise, even if Jones has every other reason to stay at home and play for his home town team. If you remember, Jones attended the Colorado State game earlier this year and voiced his concern over Hawkins inability to motivate his team at halftime as well as the crushing loss to Toledo on national television (source:Buffzone.com):

Littleton High School running back Mister Jones committed to CU in June, but he said Saturday he has decided to make official visits to other programs because he is concerned about the state of things in Boulder.

"I mean, it's obvious," Jones said when asked why he has decided to schedule visits. "They lost to like Toledo and Colorado State the last couple weeks. The CU program isn't doing too good right now."

This is the second four star commit to have said "no thanks" to Colorado this month. Other Colorado prep star QB Danny Spond decommitted from Colorado to look at other schools. Spond said the Buffs were still high on his list but the news of Jones decommitting will only provide Spond with more reasons to stay away from Boulder.

It really is a kick in the pants that two of the top rated Colorado prep recruits decommitted and who can really blame them? We all knew after Darrell Scott decommitted, the negative publicity towards the University after they gave Hawkins a fifth year after going 16 - 33 and losing to Toledo & Colorado State would have a negative impact on this program and it's recruiting.

Again, the worst part of this deal is Mister Jones is about as close as a lock to a program as you can get, other than a guy like TE Kyle Slavin who had family members attend the University. From day one Jones said his commitment was the Buffs to lose and really wanted to play in Boulder.

One of the main reasons Mike Bohn hired Dan Hawkins and reiterated his approval of Hawkins late in November was to repair the Buffs' image in the community, especially in the state of Colorado. Four years later, the Buffs currently have one commit from a Colorado high school athlete in TE Kyle Slavin. Slavin is ranked 11th in the state of Colorado according to rivals.com. QB Danny Spond, WR Kenny Bell and DE Nduka Onyeali remain the only uncommitted prospects in the state of Colorado and none look like they will attend CU unless something drastic happens. I think the kids in Colorado have sent a deafening message to the University of Colorado about the image of the program.

While Dan Hawkins talks about having to open up another email account because of the criticism he is receiving and his dislike for speaking engagements in the state of Colorado, the program continues to fail in almost all of the important aspects of becoming successful.

Just yesterday, defensive backs coach Greg Brown left Colorado to coach at the University of Arizona. Brown was considered one of Colorado's best coaches. Up to this point Dan Hawkins has stated that he plans to make no changes to his staff and Mike Bohn has made it well known that Hawkins' return for a fifth year carried no stipulations of having to make changes to his staff.

Texas A&M currently has nine running backs on its roster, six of which are underclassmen. They return their two top backs from a year ago in junior Cyrus Gray and sophomore Christine Michael, a former 5 star and top running back recruit a year ago. A&M also has another four star running back commit for the 2010 cycle in 5'9" 201 pound Ben Malena.

The Colorado Buffaloes on the other hand have six total running backs on the roster. Demetrius Sumler will be a senior next year which leaves only Rodney Stewart and Brian Lockridge as running backs who have seen any action. The Colorado coaches made it clear last year that they don't have a desire to play Lockridge with any consistency although he is one of the fastest players on the team. Mister Jones was thought to have had a chance to play from day one especially when you consider Rodney Stewart has not stayed healthy for a full season his first two years.

The Colorado Buffaloes added some offensive line depth today as they received a verbal commitment from a big offensive lineman in Eric Richter, according to his rivals.com player page. Richter, the 6'5" 315 pound guard, played his last two seasons at Saddleback Junior College in Mission Viejo, California. Before attending junior college, Richter played his high school ball at Capistrano Valley. Saddleback Junior College is the same institution that produced former Buff commit RB PT Gates and former Buff player QB Nick Nelson. Gates failed to qualify and Nelson never saw much action in his time at Colorado. As is always the case at the University of Colorado, we will have to see if Richter will have admissions issues coming from a junior college. We all know the stories of LB Shaun Mohler and WR Andre Simmons and the difficulty in academically qualifying for Colorado. Hopefully he is a full qualifier and can get into school starting this spring semester, something that helps any incoming student athlete adjust to division one football and University classes.

Richter had a strong sophomore season at Saddleback, anchoring the offensive line on a team that won their bowl game and finished 9 - 2 in the National Division Southern Conference:

The accolades continue to pile in for the football team, which finished 9-2 on the season, winning the Western State Bowl 31-20 over College of the Canyons on November 21.  A total of 14 members of the team were named to the National Division Southern Conference All Conference teams.

The Gauchos had two unanimous choices, with offensive guard Eric Richter.

Richter also had offers from Arkansas State and San Diego State. He was receiving interest from SEC and PAC 10 schools as well but had not been offered before his commitment to Colorado.

Back when he was in high school at Capistrano, Richter played in the Orange County All Star game

Here is a piece from his junior college website:

Returns to Saddleback for his sophomore season after playing in six games as a freshman in 2008.  He was a First Team All-South Coast League selection as a both a junior and senior at Capistrano Valley High School.  Richter plans to major in criminal justice and his cousin, Ian Kennedy, is a pitcher in the New York Yankees organization.

More to come as we get more information, welcome Eric.

Defensive backs coach Greg Brown has decided to leave his post at Colorado and head for greener pastures at the University of Arizona. In an announcement that is soon to come, Arizona will give Greg Brown a promotion to co-defensive coordinator as well as defensive backs coach. Arizona was close to a PAC 10 championship this year, beat USC and ended up winning 8 games in a turn around year for the Wildcats. Arizona will play later this month against Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl.

This is clearly a situation of looking at two programs going in the opposite directions and the program who is on the upswing offering a coach a long term deal and a promotion.

Last year, Brown was courted by South Florida before turning down a coordinator position.

Statistically in 2009, the Colorado pass defense finished 35th in the nation and 4th in the Big 12 which was the best offensive or defensive ranking on the team. After a rough start to the year where the Buffs ranked 75th in pass defense, the last six weeks of the year the Colorado secondary only allowed two teams over 200 yards and held two opponents in Nebraska and Kansas State to under 100 yards.

Two years ago, Greg Brown's secondary was labeled in the preseason as the biggest weak spot on the team but overall, they turned in one of the more surprising performances and overachieved compared to expectations.

The secondary was considered one of the most talented units on the team, thanks in large part to Greg Brown. Next year, Colorado has to replace some exceptional players in CB Cha'pelle Brown and S Ben Burney. Also, one must wonder what this announcement will do to the decision of CB Jimmy Smith who is weighing the option of playing in the NFL.

Congratulations to Coach Brown who has strong roots in the state of Colorado with his father being radio personality Irv Brown.

As for the situation on the Colorado side, this is certainly not good news. You could make a strong argument that Greg Brown is the best coach on the staff. The Buffs face a major rebuilding project in the secondary and not having Brown to lead the charge is a little troubling. The obvious replacement for Greg Brown is current wide receiver coach and former NFL defensive back Ashley Ambrose, someone Brown was instrumental in bringing to the program as a coach.

5-3, 0-0 NR (AP) NR (Coaches Poll)

December 7th, 2009 7:07 pm MT Who: Colorado Buffaloes vs. Colorado Christian Cougars Where: Coors Event Center TV: None Radio: 760-AM Line: None Colorado Christian Site: Colorado Christian Athletics

1-4, 0-0 NR (AP) NR (Coaches Poll)

Welcome to the Ralphie Report as the Colorado Buffaloes get ready to take on the Colorado Christian Cougars in Boulder, Colorado.  The Buffs are looking to extend their home winning streak to 5 in a row against a division II CCU team that has only won once this year out of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.

From CUBuffs.com: 

Colorado Christian comes into tonight's game with one win after five games. The Cougars defeated Western State on Sunday, Dec. 6, 77-69 at the Cougar Event Center in Lakewood. Jobi Wall recorded his first double-double of the season with 24 points and 10 rebounds, along with four assists. Justin Neuhaus added 10 rebounds, eight points and seven blocked shots as CCU led by nine points at halftime. The Cougars shot 45.6 percent from the field and made 11 treys.              

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Congratulations to Buff commit QB Nick Hirschman, who capped off an amazing high school season with a section championship Saturday night. His Los Gatos team beat Wilcox 20 - 19 in overtime as Hirschman completed a pass on 4th down in the extra period for the go ahead score. Wilcox missed an extra point on their first overtime possession which allowed Los Gatos to win the game.

This game sounded pretty crazy. Here is the recap of the missed extra point:

On the first extra point attempt Cesar Duenas’s kick was good, but the play was waved off because it had been blown dead when Los Gatos went offsides. On the next attempt, Wilcox was called for illegal motion setting the kick back 5 yards. The next snap was high forcing Duenas to make an unsuccessful desperation pass.

But Hirschman's team wouldn't have been there without a successful hook 'n ladder play with 2:04 seconds remaining for 70 yard score:

Los Gatos trailed 13-6 and was at its own 30 yard line with 2:04 left when Cattolico made the call of the game.

Hirschman threw a strike to Hackman-Salazar over the middle going right to left about 15 yards downfield Hackman-Salazar pitched to Andrew Berg who burst to the right sideline for the remaining 55 yards of a 70-yard touchdown getting a key block from Sam Bowers. Heimer’s extra point tied the game.

"We’ve been practicing that play every day waiting for that exact type of situation," said Hirschman who was 14 of 25 for 192 yards. "For it to work like that with two minutes left that was unreal."

In other news:

-It looks like the Nebraska vs. Colorado game played a week ago no longer has any interest on a national level. In fact, the game received the lowest ratings of any football game ABC put on its station this entire season. Todd Henrichs of HuskerExtra.com wonders how long ABC will stay committed to the game:

This is purely speculation on my part, but I wonder how long the Big 12 and television partner ABC will stay committed to having the NU-Colorado game on Black Friday. The overnight TV rating of 1.9 for this year’s game from Boulder was the lowest of the season for any college football game on ABC, and it marked the third time in four years that the NU-CU game drew the lowest ranking of any college football played on network television that day. Predictably, NU-Colorado was crushed in the ratings by Alabama-Auburn, which drew a 4.8 rating on CBS. But the Illinois-Cincinnati lead-in on ABC drew a 2.5.

On a positive note, last night's game between Texas and Nebraska turned into a defensive slug fest. Colorado's offense a week before put up 406 yards on Nebraska while Texas could only muster 222. But the more amazing thing was Colorado's ability to limit All-World Nebraska DT Ndamukong Suh. Against Texas, Suh destroyed the Longhorn offensive line to the tune of 12 total tackles, 7 for loss and 4.5 sacks. It was an amazing performance. Against Ryan Miller and the Colorado offensive line, Suh had a rather pedestrian day, only accounting for five tackles and a phantom sack on a bad intentional grounding call.

-Moving on to the hardwood, the men's basketball team lost a bad one this past Friday night as Colorado failed to do the little things on the defensive end to stop Oregon State. The Boulder Daily Camera has the story:

The offensive fireworks have been present throughout the season. But the more aggressive and determined Beavers outscored CU 10-2 in crunch time, despite making just one field goal in the final four minutes. "We can`t have certain guys go without defensive rebounds the entire game," Bzdelik lamented. Higgins, the team`s leading rebounder last season, had two defensive rebounds in 39 minutes. Relphorde had one rebound in 29 minutes. CU out-rebounded Oregon State 32-30 thanks to 15 offensive rebounds, including six by Burks. However, the Buffs allowed 12 costly second-chance points and sent the Beavers to the foul line 34 times. "It`s real simple: We need to rebound and defend," Relphorde admitted. "We gave them a lot of free points off offensive rebounds. I know I did a terrible job on the defensive glass. We`re scoring the ball. We need to rebound."

Buffs falter down stretch at Oregon State - Boulder Daily Camera

The Buffs have lost 19 consecutive road games against Division I opponents. The program`s last such victory was on Dec. 22, 2007, at Colorado State (73-70). CU returns to Moby Arena next Thursday to face the rival Rams.

Cory Higgins -- who entered the game second in the Big 12 in scoring (20.7 ppg) behind Oklahoma State`s James Anderson (21.0 ppg) -- finished with 15 points. Super freshman Alec Burks led the way for the Buffs with a team-high 19 points. It wasn`t enough as Nate Tomlinson missed a pair of free throws that could have given CU the lead in the final minute trailing 70-69. Oregon State went 4-for-4 at the stripe in the final 17.2 seconds to pull out the victory in the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series matchup.

"It`s extremely disappointing. We did a horrific job of containing the ball and on defensive rebounding and fouling people," CU head coach Jeff Bzdelik said. "Toughness is containing the ball. Toughness is defensive rebounding. Toughness is finishing at the rim, we had opportunities at the rim and we just flipped it up there. Toughness is defending without fouling." CU out-rebounded the Beavers 32-30, but Oregon State was 26-for-34 from the line and shot 51.1 percent from the field for the game.

Buffs Fall to Oregon State - CUBuffs.com

"It was very disappointing; we certainly had our opportunity to win this game," said CU Head Coach Jeff Bzdelik. "We had a wide-open look at a three and we had a couple free throws; we missed some timely opportunities to score and put some pressure on them."

CU-Boulder Chancellor Phil DiStefano: Let's support Dan Hawkins - Colorado Daily

Five years ago, when the athletic department at the University of Colorado at Boulder was in its darkest days, we made a decision that we were going to reintegrate athletics into the academic mission of the university.

Shmuck of the Week: CU Athletic Director Mike Bohn - Denver News - The Latest Word

Sure, three million is a lot of coin to pay a guy to go away, especially when you're going to have to come up with even more cash to pay someone new to take over. But why did they give him the extension in the first place? At the time athletic director Mike Bohn extended Hawkins' contract last fall, the coach had produced nothing more than a big, heaping pile of mediocrity, leading the Buffs to 11 wins in his first 30 games. What was it about a .330 winning percentage that made Bohn say, "We better guarantee this guy more money before he gets swooped up by Sacramento State"? So, yeah: That was not very smart. Nor was the university's inability to drum up the $3 million to make Hawkins go away. So for that, Mr. Bohn, you are our Shmuck of the Week.

Hawkins, CU staff hit road to recruit - Boulder Daily Camera

Hawkins understands he will probably have to answer questions about his future beyond next season when visiting with recruits and their parents. He said he is accustomed to discussing the topic. It comes up every year because coaches come and go through every program even when things are going well. Hawkins said he advises recruits to choose a school because of the academics and the environment as much as the football. "I counsel them about that all the time," Hawkins said this week. "I think you`re very honest with those guys. ... Is a part of it the head coach? Is a part of it the position coach? Isa part of it the coordinator? Yeah. That is all part of it, but that other stuff should be part of it, too. No head coach is going to change that town or that weather or where it is, distance from home, the academic ranking of the majors. No coach is going to change that."

Another area of uncertainty is whether coaches will sign another running back to go with Littleton High School star Mister Jones. Jones has told recruiting services he is firmly committed to CU, but he is slated to visit Texas A&M next weekend and is contemplating a visit to Nebraska.

KU receiver Briscoe declares for NFL draft - KansasCity.com

KU junior receiver Dezmon Briscoe announced Friday afternoon that he will skip his senior season and declare for the 2010 NFL draft.

Continue reading this post »

MBB Travels to Oregon State - CUBuffs.com

OSU UPDATE: The Beavers bring a 2-3 mark into Friday's game with wins over South Dakota (62-47) and on the road against George Washington, 64-57. OSU returns nine letterwinners and four starters from its CBI title team that went 18-18 in Craig Robinson's first year at the helm. OSU went 12-7 at home last year.

Buffs face familiar style: Colorado, Oregon State both feature Princeton offense - Buffzone

So far, the Beavers are not living up to the hype with head-scratching losses to Texas A&M Corpus Christi and Sacramento State on the non-conference resume. Oregon State is also 0-1 against the Big 12 this season with a loss at Texas Tech.

CU`s Geer named first-team All-Big 12 - Buffzone
The AP released their Big 12 All-Conference teams. Here is how the Buffs fared:
1st team - TE Riar Geer
2nd team - WR Scotty McKnight, CB Jimmy Smith
Honorable Mention - OT Nate Solder, LB Jeff Smart, DB Cha'pelle Brown, DB Jalil Brown

Obviously, they got the Scotty McKnight choice right compared to the Big 12 coaches who put McKnight on the Honorable Mention team. Nate Solder was a first teamer on the coach's ballot while he was honorable mention in the media's.

CU could fancy passing in 2010 - The Longmont Times-Call

It’ll be interesting to see what the Colorado Buffaloes try on offense in 2010. For the first time in Dan Hawkins’ tenure, there’s reason for encouragement. Make that the second time. Entering 2008, the Buffs had a returning starting quarterback and wide receivers, plus some touted talent arriving from a top-15 recruiting class. Then they changed the offense’s pace without realizing that pace did not suit the talent. It didn’t work. In 2009, the plan was first and foremost to run the ball. CU finished last in yards in the Big 12 for the third time in four seasons. It finished with an average rush of 2.8 yards a try. No other Big 12 team had an average below 3.4. Back to the drawing board? Not quite. We might have received a preview of 2010 on Nov. 19 at Oklahoma State, where CU opened the game by calling passes on its first 13 plays. In the season finale against Nebraska, the Buffs threw 44 passes. They had 28 runs.

Buff star Barringer signs with agent Flynn - Boulder Daily Camera

Jenny Barringer`s star-studded career at Colorado came to a disappointing end at the NCAA national championships earlier this month, but her future still looks bright.