Sunday Rips

Steve Spurrier built Florida into a powerhouse, winning a national championship at the school. He flopped in the professional ranks with Washington but is now back where he belongs, the college game.

His South Carolina team fell to Arkansas on Saturday, leading to this telling quote.

"That's why we're losers around here -- we don't do the little things right."

That's something that's been preached all season long in Boulder as well. Yes, the talent is lacking but it is the inability to do everything near-perfect that has led to loss after loss. Without the playmakers, without sufficient future pros on each side of the ball, the margin for error is so small, if not infinitesimal, that errors cost CU games.

Another missing ingredient is detailed in a story in the Denver Post, written by Chris Dempsey.

"It's probably typical of a team that's probably looking for external means of confidence and reinforcement," coach Dan Hawkins said. "So it's hard during those down times because you're sort of waiting for something to happen rather than going and making something happen."

Losers, and that's what CU is right now, record wise, play tentatively and not with confidence, expecting bad things, regardless of what they do, while winning teams know good things are coming soon, maybe right now.

Hawkins went on to say he knew coming to Boulder was going to be a rough beginning.

"I knew this was not going to be an easy rodeo when I got into it," he said.

Hawkins has become like former Texas Tech coach Spyke Dykes, a fun master of quotes. Dykes won at Lubbock, just not enough. Selling a program in which you are currently 1-9 requires stones, onions, fortitude, however you wish to say it, whether it be in recruits' homes or in the media.

Later...post-game quotes from Hawkins.