Buffs Receive Pac-12 South Championship Rings
June 23, 2017 | Football
CU celebrates 2016 Pac-12 South Division title with ring ceremony Friday night
BOULDER – The University of Colorado football program was presented with their 2016 Pac-12 South Division championship rings Friday Night in the Petry & Harrington Family Auditorium on the third floor of CU's Champions Center.
The rings are quite a spectacular reward presented to the student-athletes, coaching staff and support staff for The Rise of the Buffaloes last year. With a 8-1 league record, Colorado won the Pac-12 South Division to make its first Pac-12 Championship game appearance before going on to play in the Valero Alamo Bowl. CU finished the year with a 10-4 record, the eighth 10-win season in program history and first since 2001.
The team was fed a lobster and steak dinner before watching a highlight video specially prepared for the unveiling of the championship rings. CU head coach Mike MacIntyre had the entire program then open up the boxes with their rings at the same time.
"From the bottom of my heart, from the deepest part of my soul, I thank everybody in here," MacIntyre told the room filled with players, coaches and support staff. "Everybody in here is getting a ring and people associated with this program have made your dreams and my dreams come true."
A number of seniors off the 2016 team returned for the ring celebration, including 2017 NFL Draft picks Chidobe Awuzie, Jordan Carrell and Ahkello Witherspoon.
"I always wanted a ring. In high school we came up short, the first few years in college we came up short, but it is so gratifying to get one now," Awuzie said. "Coming back here to Colorado to see all my best friends, my teammates I grinded so hard with, it's looking pretty. I love having this ring and it is a symbol of all the work we put in these last four years."
What's to Come
With this year's Colorado unit in the middle of its summer strength and conditioning period, and fall camp opening in just 35 days, Friday's dinner and ceremony served as a reminder to the team of what all the hard work they are putting in now is for.
There is a big sense of urgency on this team not to see a drop-off from a championship level.
"This is all cool and everything, but we have to go in there and produce again," said running back Phillip Lindsay, who was a captain on the 2016 team and returns next year once again as a team captain. "We got to go in there and get a couple more rings. We have to get a Pac-12 Championship and we got to go to that Rose Bowl. That's our goal. Nothing less and that is what we are going to go for."
About the Season
Colorado in 2016, a year in which it was picked to finish dead last in the Pac-12 South Division, completed the single biggest improvement in league record from one year to the next. Finishing 8-1 in league play, that was a reversal from a 1-8 mark in 2015, or a difference in seven games.
In Pac-12 history, there are just two instances where a school won seven or more games in league play than it did the season before, with Colorado joining the 1940 Stanford team as the only ones to accomplish the feat. Stanford's 6½-game improvement that year had been the best from one year to the next, with three others improving by five games; but at a +7, last year's the Buffaloes became the league's all-time most improved team.
CU's turnaround registered nationally. Taking a closer look at the current landscape of the so-called Power-5 conferences (Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and Southeastern) and examining the history of those teams, CU's turnaround is up there with some of the all-time finest among college football's big boys. The Buffaloes became the ninth team among the Power-5 schools since 1972 to win 10 or more games after finishing the previous season with four or fewer wins (1972 was the year freshman became eligible to play NCAA Division I football, thus defining the modern era).
CU also became the third team in history to end a run of 10-straight losing seasons with a 10-win season.
The rings are quite a spectacular reward presented to the student-athletes, coaching staff and support staff for The Rise of the Buffaloes last year. With a 8-1 league record, Colorado won the Pac-12 South Division to make its first Pac-12 Championship game appearance before going on to play in the Valero Alamo Bowl. CU finished the year with a 10-4 record, the eighth 10-win season in program history and first since 2001.
The team was fed a lobster and steak dinner before watching a highlight video specially prepared for the unveiling of the championship rings. CU head coach Mike MacIntyre had the entire program then open up the boxes with their rings at the same time.
"From the bottom of my heart, from the deepest part of my soul, I thank everybody in here," MacIntyre told the room filled with players, coaches and support staff. "Everybody in here is getting a ring and people associated with this program have made your dreams and my dreams come true."
A number of seniors off the 2016 team returned for the ring celebration, including 2017 NFL Draft picks Chidobe Awuzie, Jordan Carrell and Ahkello Witherspoon.
"I always wanted a ring. In high school we came up short, the first few years in college we came up short, but it is so gratifying to get one now," Awuzie said. "Coming back here to Colorado to see all my best friends, my teammates I grinded so hard with, it's looking pretty. I love having this ring and it is a symbol of all the work we put in these last four years."
What's to Come
With this year's Colorado unit in the middle of its summer strength and conditioning period, and fall camp opening in just 35 days, Friday's dinner and ceremony served as a reminder to the team of what all the hard work they are putting in now is for.
There is a big sense of urgency on this team not to see a drop-off from a championship level.
"This is all cool and everything, but we have to go in there and produce again," said running back Phillip Lindsay, who was a captain on the 2016 team and returns next year once again as a team captain. "We got to go in there and get a couple more rings. We have to get a Pac-12 Championship and we got to go to that Rose Bowl. That's our goal. Nothing less and that is what we are going to go for."
About the Season
Colorado in 2016, a year in which it was picked to finish dead last in the Pac-12 South Division, completed the single biggest improvement in league record from one year to the next. Finishing 8-1 in league play, that was a reversal from a 1-8 mark in 2015, or a difference in seven games.
In Pac-12 history, there are just two instances where a school won seven or more games in league play than it did the season before, with Colorado joining the 1940 Stanford team as the only ones to accomplish the feat. Stanford's 6½-game improvement that year had been the best from one year to the next, with three others improving by five games; but at a +7, last year's the Buffaloes became the league's all-time most improved team.
CU's turnaround registered nationally. Taking a closer look at the current landscape of the so-called Power-5 conferences (Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and Southeastern) and examining the history of those teams, CU's turnaround is up there with some of the all-time finest among college football's big boys. The Buffaloes became the ninth team among the Power-5 schools since 1972 to win 10 or more games after finishing the previous season with four or fewer wins (1972 was the year freshman became eligible to play NCAA Division I football, thus defining the modern era).
CU also became the third team in history to end a run of 10-straight losing seasons with a 10-win season.