Rocket Ship Rise and Fall of Colorado Football

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Remember all the snazzy sunglasses? Remember the gaggle of gold necklaces? Remember the rappers and other Hollywood celebrities on the sidelines? Remember College GameDay going to Boulder, Colorado, and fawning all over the team, 3 and 0 program, and the prince-like dynamo, Deion Sanders?

All that razzmatazz is officially over. The meteoric rise is now a nose-diving nothingburger.

Last night, Colorado led by 29 points at half-time and somehow managed to lose to Stanford in overtime, 46-43, making this once-undefeated team now 4 and 3 and headed, probably, for more painful and embarrassing experiences and, most notably, no longer the most talked about college football program in America.

Hypesters (TV networks, bloggers, etc.) don’t like teams that lose – especially the way Colorado did last night with the largest blown lead in the school’s football history dating back to 1890.

1890.

The man at the forefront of this football fiasco is, of course, Coach Prime. For the past two months, he talked a lot of trash when America couldn’t soak in enough of everything him saying other teams “better get us know” cuz “we’re comin’.”

It sounded like a threat. And I remember thinking about all the college football coaches who’ve spent decades working at the craft of coaching college football, thinking to themselves “Who is this guy thinking he’s smarter and more talented than us when he hasn’t even coached much college football and nearly none in the big-time?”

Being good at something doesn’t often happen quickly, and Coach Prime’s proclamations about taking his team to the Promised Land quickly seemed fraught with unrealistic and illogical hollowness. Even when he gets the best players – or at least several of them – he’ll still have to out-scheme really shrewd football coaches and that will be difficult.

Really difficult. Really.

College football coaches are borderline if not all-out maniacally competitive, and Prime’s threats fueled them. He shouldn’t have done that. Staying humble would have helped his chances of becoming a great football coach. Talking trash has made his enormous ambitions less likely to come true. Just think about it: All those five-star recruits who committed to his team next year quite possibly, after last night’s nightmare, will de-commit.

So the Colorado football frenzy now has the feel of a one-off like the pet rock and beanie babies. TV networks hyped it to boost ratings and now will turn to other things to hype because, like Coach Prime, they’re mostly interested in their own self-interest.

Prime’s son will still be driving his Rolls Royce around Colorado’s campus, but students who see him are going to be less dazzled because losers don’t dazzle. His ride won’t seem as cruise-worthy as it did a few weeks ago. Losers don’t cruise; they stall and choke.

In Prime’s post-game presser last night, he didn’t wear his sunglasses and gold chains like he did when his team was the hottest sports story on Earth. Knowing him, always being calculated, he ditched the shades and gold because he knew that ostentatious look would generate even more negative press than his team was already going to get for choking last night. Every sports outlet in America is taking him down this morning.

But Prime is charismatic and compelling. He’s smart and insightful and didn’t try to hide how much pain his team’s play inflicted on him. And give him credit, he blamed himself and didn’t name any of his coaches or players who blew the game, which was smart because the head coach has to take the sword in the sternum in sorry situations such as this one. Any under-the-bus throwing of others would have made him look petty.

Prime put this whole situation in perspective when a reporter asked how his team will move forward.

“We have to. We have no choice but to go forward. That’s life. This game isn’t the only thing that’s going on in life. All you guys (reporters) are dealing with something. You’re still progressing. You’re still going forward. We have to do the same thing.”

He’s right – as he often is. No matter what happened yesterday at work or with our family situations this week, we all have to confront today. It’s life’s command.

About the colossal collapse last night, he said: “Hey, we didn’t expect that. There are a lot of things that go on in life that are unexpected. This is one of them. We’re gonna knuckle up and let’s go. We can’t sit down and have a pity party. You don’t feel bad for us. Some of you are ecstatic about what happened. And I know that. But that’s cool. We’re gonna take this on the chin cuz we deserve it.”

I’m not ecstatic about what happened. I do believe it’s good for Prime and his team to feel the pain of being embarrassed because we all have to go through this pain and they were getting too haughty, which is unattractive and not behavior we’re taught is laudable. Life ensures we all suffer these experiences. Pain they feel today.

Isn’t it sad the way we like to prop up people and then knock them down? This is what is going to happen to Prime and his players. We do it for ratings. We write blogs that we think will get clicks and get us more attention. No matter at whose expense. We’re tangled up in the attention economy.

But Coach Prime deserves criticism. He went too far with the cocky behavior and big talk about all the great players he’s got coming into his program at Colorado. Nobody likes it when a person talks about how great he is or will be. Nobody I know is impressed by any father who allows his college-age student to drive a Rolls Royce. It sends the wrong message, that flaunting material possessions in peoples’ faces is appropriate. No college student has labored long enough in life to deserve such a luxury. Worse, when his son is 50 what car would he want to get to feel even more wealthy and proud? There are none, which means he has nothing to shoot for as far as cars go, and that’s flattening.

Allowing his son to get a luxury car shows Prime prioritizes things, showing off riches. That’s idolatry of things not worth idolizing.

I actually like Prime for his confidence, honesty, eloquence, and the way he handled last night’s press conference. I like his competitiveness. I like that he inspires. I think he has a good heart but is also flawed like every one of us.

Heroes always fall and have flaws: Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Tom Brady. He’s no different. Prime is complicated. People are complicated.

But once no longer compelling, once they stop winning, they’re no longer as intriguing. We become less interested in them. We find another winner to hype up because that’s clickbait. Until they lose and we write them off, which is also clickbait.

The hype about Colorado football was a one-time thing that will never happen again.

It seems like Prime Time was only a minute ago, but now it feels like years ago.