Coming into the 2016 season, the Colorado Buffaloes were not considered to be a contender by any means. Yet they proved that the “rise” truly is real by winning the Pac-12 South, competed in their first bowl game since 2007 and finished the year with a 10-4 record. The Buffs have added another accolade to the list with being ranked 27th for overall recruiting class of 2017, according to ESPN.
Head coach Mike MacIntyre told Eric Goodman and Les Shapiro during The Afternoon Drive on Mile High Sports Radio that, “I thought before the start of the season we had a lot of these young men committed. We we’re having a great recruiting class at that time, it was quote ‘ranked high’, but having the winning season definitely cemented those guys into it.”
Reaching outside the border of Colorado, the Buffaloes have recruited eight players from Dallas, which is more than Texas A&M (five) and Texas (two) combined.
“This year we put more coaches in there, we put five coaches in there full time, and got after it. Darrin Chiaverini had a lot to do with that, he has a lot of connections there from when he was at Texas Tech,” said MacIntyre. “We were able to get a couple of guys early in Texas, and with today’s recruiting, the way it is, if you get a guy that really loves it, wants to be it, he’ll start recruiting guys through social media and all the different things they do. That was a big part of this year’s class in staying together and getting more guys in Texas.”
Yet, putting together an elite draft class does not come with ease.
“We do a great job of evaluating and that’s how we are what we are now. Before, everybody didn’t know about those guys that we evaluated and got some really good football players,” said MacIntyre. “I think now when they see us they know that we are evaluating well, so they trust that.”
Listen to more of Coach Mac’s interview, and his thoughts on who he thinks will compete for a starting position, in the podcast below.
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Catch Afternoon Drive with Goodman and Shapiro every weekday from 4p-6p on Mile High Sports AM 1340 | FM 104.7 or stream live any time for the best local coverage of Colorado sports from Denver’s biggest sports talk lineup.
