BOULDER, Colo. -- On New Year’s Eve last year, Colorado defensive end Jordan Carrell sent a text message to coach Mike MacIntyre. The team’s season ended several weeks earlier with a fifth consecutive last-place finish in the Pac-12 South, which is why MacIntyre’s response was memorable: “I can’t wait to coach you 2016 Pac-12 champs."

Whether Carrell believed it would actually happen isn’t important, but it stuck with him, and in the wake of No. 9 Colorado’s 27-22 win against No. 22 Utah to clinch the Pac-12 South on Saturday, it was fresh in his mind. The Buffaloes are almost there.

“Just looking back at that text, it is a great feeling to know that we made it to this championship,” Carrell said, “and now it is time to really give Buff Nation what they deserve -- and that is to win another championship out here in Colorado.”

The Buffs have a chance to deliver that championship Friday when they play No. 5 Washington in the Pac-12 title game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

“Worst to first, not many people can say they do that and our young men did that,” MacIntyre said. “Now, we’ve got one more to do, that’s what we set out to do.”

Don’t mistake the festive atmosphere in the Colorado locker room after the game for satisfaction. By the time quarterback Sefo Liufau and receiver Devin Ross met with the media, they were all business. In fact, there was an almost somberness to their demeanor that wasn’t at all reflective of the significance of what they just accomplished.

Liufau, who on Sunday was named the team’s co-MVP with Chidobe Awuzie, was proud of the milestone victory, but clearly frustrated with his own play. He chastised himself for a pair of fumbles and also gave credit to Utah’s defense for making life difficult.

“It’s not all bad,” he said. “There’s definitely some positives we can take.”

Not all bad.

In Liufau’s first three seasons at Colorado, the team went 2-25 in Pac-12 games. That’s what "all bad" looks like. What Colorado did Saturday in defeating a consecutive top-25 team at Folsom Field to close the regular season 10-2 overall and 8-1 conference play was the opposite.

Still, it didn’t seem to matter and, perhaps, that has everything to do with what lies ahead. After all, MacIntyre’s text didn’t read, “2016 Pac-12 South champs.”

Liufau wasn’t alone in his measured celebration. Fellow senior defensive end/outside linebacker Jimmie Gilbert took a similar approach.

“It wasn’t really emotional for me because for me, I feel like we still have another job to do. It is a special night, great night, final game at Folsom, and we came out with a victory,” Gilbert said. “But now that that game is over, my attention is just turned to the next one. We still have a job to do, we still have business -- so I try not to celebrate too much on one victory because I know next week we have another fight on our hands.”

Regardless of what happens against Washington, there will come a point when each individual on the team has a chance to appreciate what this team has done.

“They’ll wake up in the middle of the night and go, ‘Wow,’” MacIntyre said. “They’ll have that moment when it’s just them by themselves when you’ve accomplished something that nobody thinks you’re going to accomplish and you do something nobody thinks you can do and really you probably doubted yourself at times. When you can do something like that, it’s truly a special life lesson.”

In anticipation of playing in the title game, some Colorado staffers worked last week preparing for Washington -- just as they would during the regular season for a team further down the schedule. The Buffs knew if they beat Utah they would play one of the Washington schools and because they just played Washington State the week before, it made preparations fairly straightforward. MacIntyre didn't want to speculate on possible scenarios that would come as a result of the outcome against Washington.

"If we do [beat Washington]," MacIntyre said, "then it takes care of everything else that could happen."