How Mike MacIntyre’s Colorado rebuild can get back on schedule

Check out the advanced-stats glossary here. Below, a unique review of last year’s team, a unit-by-unit breakdown of this year’s roster, the full 2016 schedule with win projections for each game, and more.

Luck matters so much in football. The ball is pointy, and this sport claims injury victims in a rather random way. You can follow the right process and make the right moves, and it might not matter because of this bounce or that knee injury.

Mike MacIntyre probably wouldn’t admit this -- it’s a sign of weakness to acknowledge that you were unlucky -- but by now he knows how hard a rebuilding job can be when the breaks don’t go your way.

In 2014, his second year in Boulder, his Buffaloes dealt with nearly four points’ worth of bad turnovers luck per game and a significant level of injury on the defensive line and in the secondary. The result: a 2-10 season marked by offensive improvement but marred by defensive ineptitude. The Buffs were 1-4 in games decided by one possession and so close to, yet so far away from, a breakthrough in Pac-12 play.

In 2015, the story was achingly similar. CU dealt with another 2.3 points per game of bad turnovers luck, lost quarterback Sefo Liufau to injury with three games to go, and lost both starting left tackle Jeromy Irwin and No. 2 rusher Michael Adkins for most of the season. The secondary was again an injury-riddled mess. So was the linebacking corps. And CU went 2-5 in one-possession games.

At times, a rebuild can seem orderly. You scrape by during a tough Year Zero, you put the pieces in place in year two, you break through in year three. Maybe you need two years, and maybe you need four, but there’s a path.

It only takes a few injuries to find out that you don’t have the depth, and CU very much figured that out in MacIntyre’s third year. I was able to contend CU had improved on paper through two years, even though the win total hadn’t changed. In 2015, the win total improved, but the quality did not.

Since bottoming out at 120th in the S&P+ ratings in 2012, they had risen to 98th in MacIntyre’s first season and 77th in his second. The defense was still lagging, but I figured the offense would continue to progress. I was wrong, and the reasons why began before Liufau went down.

It’s now harder to sell the idea that MacIntyre is making progress. To be sure, the program is better than when he inherited it, but he inherited a program coming off of its worst season ever. Having $4 is an improvement over being broke, but it doesn’t buy you much.

Under MacIntyre, CU has had one good offense and zero good defenses. The Buffs are 3-10 in one-possession games and 7-17 in all the others. They are 2-25 in conference play. The Pac-12 is producing more decent teams than ever before, and the Buffs have yet to become one. Plus, while bad luck might not be your fault, selling recruits on your vision is difficult the longer you go without winning.

Still, if they could just get a lucky bounce or two, stay semi-healthy for once, maintain the lineup MacIntyre intended to field, or pull off a threatened upset (usually against UCLA), we might be telling a different story. You need to be lucky and good to pull off a rebuild like this; MacIntyre was great at San Jose State and has been decent in Boulder.

Any goals Colorado had for 2015 required a fast start. The Buffs faced six opponents that ranked worse than 75th in F/+, including the first four on the schedule.

Even early on, the quality wasn’t quite what it should have been. CU handled UMass and Nicholls State but played poorly in a season-opening loss at dreadful Hawaii (a game that immediately erased bowl hopes) and basically won a coin toss in the game against Colorado State. Still, the ceiling the Buffs showed in the two blowouts was encouraging.

The ceiling lowered quickly.

As the schedule improved, the CU offense’s production regressed, and the CU defense regressed even more. The Buffs scored more than 24 points just twice in conference play and averaged better than 5.4 yards per play once; the defense, meanwhile, held opponents under 27 points twice and under 6.3 per play three times.

That the Buffs were actually close enough to lose four conference games by a touchdown or less was almost confusing. Regardless, by the end, CU didn’t have much to offer against a power-conference opponent.

One sign that you lack depth: Your production regresses with each passing quarter. That was certainly the case for CU in 2015. The Buffs ranked a decent 66th in Q1 S&P+, then faded into the 80s, then 90s, then 110s. They showed decent efficiency on standard downs but lacked big-play capability, and as soon as they fell behind schedule, the drive was soon over.

Things predictably got worse when Liufau got hurt. He suffered a Lisfranc injury in the first quarter against USC, and after averaging 5 yards per play through the first two-thirds of Pac-12 play, the Buffs’ average sank to 4.4. That they still came within shouting distance of both USC and Utah was both an encouraging sign and a missed opportunity.

Note: players in bold below are 2016 returnees. Players in italics are questionable with injury/suspension.

Lisfranc injuries seem to take forever to heal. Liufau missed spring practice, and it appeared CU would redshirt him while giving the starting QB job to Texas Tech graduate transfer Davis Webb. But Webb elected to attend Cal instead. That CU coaches responded like reasonable adults to this news was commendable, but it didn’t help the quarterback situation.

So now the hopes are all on Liufau. Cade Apsay was dismissed in March, leaving walk-on senior Jordan Gehrke (11-for-20 for 113 yards against Utah in the finale) and redshirt freshman Steven Montez to fight for the job. Neither seized control, and Liufau is probably the best option. You know, if he can walk right.

Liufau hasn’t developed as CU fans hoped. His passer rating hasn’t really changed at all: 128.3 as a freshman, 131.8 as a sophomore, 126.4 as a junior.

But he hasn’t gotten a lot of help. His run game was once again poor in 2015, with the top three tailbacks combining to average just 4.6 yards per carry with an opportunity rate of just 35.4 percent. (National average: 39.2 percent.) And while Nelson Spruce was one of the nation’s most reliable possession receivers, big-play opportunities in the passing game were few and far between. Spruce is gone, but the return of virtually everybody else is at least encouraging from a continuity standpoint.

The line shuffled constantly, with nine players starting at least one game, seven starting at least five, and only two starting all 13 games.

That eight of the nine starters are back, and 2014 starter Jeromy Irwin should be healthy, is a good sign. So is the fact that the line was tremendous both in short-yardage situations and at keeping opponents out of the backfield.

Four Colorado backs carried at least 45 times in 2015, but there was a shift in responsibility as the season progressed (or, in CU’s case, regressed). In the first seven games, Phillip Lindsay and Christian Powell carred 142 times, while young backups Patrick Carr and Donovan Lee (a converted wideout) carried just 37 times. Over the final six games, Lee and Carr combined for 78 carries to Lindsay and Powell’s 69. Carr was mostly ineffective but had a strong game against UCLA (19 carries, 100 yards), and Lee showed more open-field explosiveness than any other Colorado rusher.

Everybody but Powell is back, and Michael Adkins II returns as well. Adkins and Liufau are both pretty efficient running the ball, but Lee’s explosiveness is tempting.

At receiver, the security blanket is gone. Devin Ross is a nice weapon in the slot, but he’s all-or-nothing -- his success rate was just 44 percent, iffy for someone who catches a lot of balls near the line of scrimmage. Meanwhile, Shay Fields is a decent deep-ball guy with efficiency issues, and Bryce Bobo was neither efficient nor explosive.

Of last year’s top nine receiving targets, only two managed a success rate better than 45 percent: Spruce and tight end Sean Irwin. And 45 percent is average at best. So there’s a balance here that could be tricky. The only efficiency options appear to be Liufau’s legs, Adkins, and a little-used tight end. The big-play threats -- Lee, Fields, maybe Ross -- aren’t efficient enough to justify the risk.

That could open the door for a youngster. Tailbacks Dino Gordon (a redshirt freshman) and Beau Bisharat (four-star true freshman) and receivers Justin Jan (redshirt freshman), Juwann Winfree (four-star JUCO) and Kabion Ento (JUCO) could all find plenty of touches if they can find a balance between consistency and big plays.

MacIntyre brought in former USF head coach Jim Leavitt to run his defense a year ago; predictably, he didn’t produce any major progress. Immediate success would be tricky.

A member of the Bill Snyder branch of the Hayden Fry coaching tree, Leavitt was head coach of the USF startup from 1996-2009, winning at least seven games 10 times and taking the Bulls to five consecutive bowls. His Bulls ranked sixth in Def. S&P+ in 2007 and were in the top 40 each year from 2005-09. He spent the last four years coaching for Jim Harbaugh’s San Francisco 49ers, and if he has horsepower at his disposal, he’ll make the most of it.

We might give Leavitt a mulligan for 2015, however. The Buffs haven’t ranked better than 98th in Def. S&P+ since 2010, and while he inherits a unit far more experienced than what CU had last year, issues up front might harm his efforts in installing his 3-4 system.

Indeed. An undersized front got pushed around and couldn’t make enough plays to make up the difference. Leavitt was able to dial up a little bit of pressure with the pass rush and an aggressive secondary, and the Buffaloes stiffened a little bit when the end zone approached, but they just didn’t have enough size or depth.

With better injuries luck, that could change. Leavitt has to replace a couple of starters in the secondary, but he still returns a star in corner Chidobe Awuzie and almost literally everybody in the front seven. There are still size issues, but while his system installation was only around 10 percent last fall, it should be closer to 50 percent this year.

It’s tough to move from a 4-3 to a 3-4 when you’ve only got one 300-pounder. To take advantage of the speed and deception a 3-4 can give you with four linebackers on the field, you need enough girth up front to keep blockers off of those LBs. Justin Solis and 6’3, 295-pound Jordan Carrell were pretty big, but CU was at a disadvantage. And the Buffs didn’t bring enough speed to the table to offset the built-in disadvantage.

The size doesn’t really improve in 2016, but Leavitt might now have enough play-makers. Carrell made 6.5 non-sack tackles for loss, a nice total from a 3-4 lineman, and the return of Addison Gillam from injury gives CU three linebackers who made at least seven TFLs in their last full season.

Jimmie Gilbert is an all-or-nothing pass rusher, but Derek McCartney emerged as a legitimate attacking option, and Gillam is solid. This only matters so much if opposing linemen are getting their hands on these linebackers, but still. There’s more potential here than there has been ... at least as long as Carrell doesn’t get hurt.

If the run defense holds up better, the pass defense should again be pretty strong. CU loses two starters in the secondary, but thanks to injuries, the Buffs also kind of return four more starters. And on paper, there are enough havoc guys here to do some damage.

It starts with Awuzie. Here’s the list of FBS defenders who had at least 12 tackles for loss and nine passes defensed last year: Ole Miss’ Mike Hilton (12.5 and 15, respectively), TCU’s Denzel Johnson (13.5 and nine), Temple’s Tyler Matakevich (15 and 10), and Awuzie. That’s impressive company. For a freshman, Isaiah Oliver proved pretty disruptive as well. These two and Akhello Witherspoon give CU an exciting set of corners, and Tedric Thompson and Ryan Moeller are at least reasonably proven at safety.

This team doesn’t have many legitimate strengths, but the secondary could turn into one. You know, if it can actually keep its starters on the field for once.

A team in Boulder should always have successful legs. And while place-kicker Diego Gonzalez showed that he could boom in long field goals (he was 7-for-12 over 40 yards and 2-for-3 over 50), Alex Kinney averaged only 40.1 yards per punt and Chris Graham booted touchbacks on only 28 percent of his kickoffs. Meanwhile, Donovan Lee’s kick returns were decent, but CU got no consistency out of the punt return game. Plus, Gonzalez couldn’t really control his cannon, missing five shorter field goals to offset the long bombs.

That almost everybody is back in this unit is ... probably a good thing? Kinney is no longer a freshman, and Lee really could turn into something impressive in returns. Still, this unit was not as good as it should have been.

If Colorado was just 7-6 in one-possession finishes instead of 3-10, the Buffaloes would be 14-23 in the MacIntyre era and might have eked out a bowl bid in 2013 or 2015. You can find progress if you squint, but Lady Luck and Colorado’s own late-game execution have worked against the Buffs.

2016 would be a great year to turn that trend around. Per S&P+, Colorado has only one very likely win (Idaho State) and five likely losses, but they have four games with a win probability between 42 and 59 percent and two more between 31 and 35 percent. That’s six games projected within 8.4 points. That’s an opportunity and a reason for dread.

Colorado doesn’t appear to be any bigger or stronger than it was two years ago. But there’s been an upgrade in speed, and it’s not too late for MacIntyre. With CU starting maybe as few as three seniors on offense and five on defense, there could be enough continuity for something impressive in 2017.