Welcome to Pac-12 Football Colorado

The Buffaloes shouldn’t be waiting for any fresh baked muffins. There aren’t any coming.

The University of Colorado has a legacy in football that stacks up with the top schools of their newest colleagues. They are ‘officially’ in the PAC-12, they have the patches to prove it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they belong.

PAC-12 media day, hosted in Los Angeles, was as star studded as the Boulder night sky.

The new league, it could be readily debated, was the best conference in America a year ago. “You have to have tons of flexibility and you have to be very creative,” said new head coach Jon Embree, “And that's what's so great about this conference.”

The gauntlet that is Colorado's schedule will test the young team, with the new staff, in the new conference. “So for them, they should be excited about it [the schedule]," said Embree yesterday to the media, "I just told him I was glad he didn’t put the Packers on the schedule.”

From the beginning of September, for 13 straight weeks, to the end of November CU has no room for error. The new staff will have to address the stacks of issues left behind by Dan Hawkins. It’ll be like trying to remove a middle block out of a wobbley Jenga tower.

He won’t be able to change the philosophy overnight. It will take weeks, even months of hard work (the offseason helped jumpstart this transistion) to get Colorado football back to where Jon Embree and the rest of the Buffalo herd know they can be.

“I want to improve the identity of our program,” said Embree, who played three seasons for the Buffs, knows what CU football is all about, “I want when people see us play, I want them to understand we're a physical program, physical team.”

But Colorado won’t, and shouldn’t, be seen as a force coming into the conference. They need to regain the hardnosed, college football reputation.

The only way to get respect, especially in this league will be to earn it on the field when the lights turn on.

http://www.ralphiereport.com/2011/7/26/2295707/pac-12-media-day-jon-embree-and-tyler-hansen-represent-the-buffaloes