Hi there, I'm Jake Shanahan, a senior at the University of Colorado. I've been a tried-and-true Buffaloes fan since I came here to Boulder for the first time in 2003.

I've supported the black and gold, through both the good times and the bad. Yeah, there were the good times. You know, when … uh … you know …

Okay, I admit it. I'm all for staying loyal to your school, but this has gotten out of hand. The CU football program, beginning with my freshman year, started bad, got worse, got a whole lot worse, and now is just plain ugly.

After a couple of embarrassing early-season losses in 2006, it just doesn't seem like anything can go right for CU football. But let's be honest, nothing has gone right for us in the last four years.

It all started with that Katie Hnida incident back in February 2004. Rick Neuheisel, the Buffaloes coach …

Actually, if I may rant for one moment. The Buffaloes? Seriously? Man, I didn't think this through when I came here. What a lame nickname for a school. What, the Diseased Yaks was already taken?

And don't even get me started on Ralphie. That thing smells worse than holy hell, and it makes our whole state look bad. Colorado is about mountains and skiing and outdoorsy stuff, not about herding cattle!

Whew, sorry about that. Anyway, so Neuheisel brings in Hnida, a kicker out of Chatfield (Littleton, CO) Senior High as a walk-on in 1998, just before he leaves to coach at Washington. In her first year as a Buff (sounds cooler than the full name), Katie was abused, harassed, and then (allegedly) raped.

This all happened in 1999, but the whole story came out my freshman year, two and a half years ago. After that, other women came out claiming that they were raped at sex parties for CU recruits, which triggered a mess of national media attention.

Then, get this, the new coach Gary Barnett — or Satan, as he's known around campus in Boulder — not only decides to back his players by refusing to deny the players' actions, or at least apologize for the whole situation. This guy actually went out of his way to bash Katie's kicking ability, saying she "was not only a girl, she was a terrible player … there's no other way to say it."

Who cares whether she was good enough or not? That's not the point! How about owning up to your player's mistakes? How about taking some responsibility for coming in and throwing a perfectly good football program into the garbage disposal?

Speaking of garbage, how about CU's last three games of 2005? The Buffs start the season 7-2, and then we decided we were too cool to keep playing hard. We lost the last four games by a combined score of 149-32. Of course, most of that was thanks to Texas, who kicked our ass in the Big XII Championship game 70-3.

Of course, Satan's answer to that disaster? "Well, a lot of teams have lost to Texas this year." Great attitude, Lucifer. Blame your shortcomings on the other guys.

God, I hate Gary Barnett. Hey, there we go, there was one good time; Dec. 8, 2005, the day Satan flamed out. The bad news was he got $3 million as CU had to buy out his contract. As if that school needed to reach any further into the wallet … CU's far enough into debt as it is.

When Barnett was fired — and when all-around good guy Dan Hawkins was hired eight days later as his successor — it gave all of us fans some hope for a better team in 2006.

I felt like a new man with a new team, walking into Folsom Field two Saturdays ago. The season opener against scrub team Montana State, no problem, right?

You can imagine how pissed off we all were, seeing the Buffs lose that game. The stadium's mood went from excited, to quiet, to stunned, to absolutely devastated. Unbelievable.

Just to make matters worse, in the second week, we lost to Colorado State in the Rocky Mountain Showdown. Doesn't get much worse when you lose to your in-state rival (which, by the way, has half the student body as CU). But it does get worse: Montana State goes home and loses to Division II team Chadron State.

Uh, does this mean CU could lose to a Division II team now? I guess so. Disgusting.

And now, the Buffs play No. 22 Arizona State, at No. 10 Georgia and at Missouri in the next three weeks. We're gonna be 0-5 by the end of September, and that'll be a nine-game losing streak.

Some powerhouse football team. Thanks a lot, Satan (yes, I still blame you).

I'm almost jealous of my cousin, Brett, who goes to the University of Wisconsin. He gets to watch a pretty good team win a lot of games, under one of the coolest coaches in the nation. Brett tells me it's easy to be proud of his football team.

Oh, and he got Brian Calhoun for a year too. I remember BC, he would have been awesome as a Buff, but you-know-who wanted to make him a receiver. That worked out real well for us, didn't it?

It's okay, though, it's okay. We'll be all right. Good things ahead of us.

How soon can I transfer to Wisconsin?

For all my friends back at CU, don't take it too seriously, I look forward to the hate mail. For everyone here at UW, enjoy the fact that you live in one of the top college sports towns in America. Either way, contact Aaron at [email protected].