After a 2-10 season in which the Colorado football team led in the second half of six losses, the Buffaloes come to Aloha Stadium to open what you might call their “hunger” games.

Head coach Mike MacIntyre does.

“They are hungry about finishing,” MacIntyre said of the Buffaloes Thursday at Pac-12 Media Day, where CU was picked to finish sixth in the South Division by the conference media.

CU was largely a freshman- and sophomore-dominated roster in 2014 with 49 percent of the starts going to those two classes when it defeated UH, 21-12 in Boulder. Sixty percent of the fall camp roster is now made up of sophomores and juniors, a spokesman said.

“We left a lot of games on the table, so to speak,” MacIntyre said. “Very frustrating, but our young men were very young.”

The Buffaloes’ woes number nine consecutive losing seasons now — the longest streak in their 125-year history — as they prepare to open camp Wednesday in advance of the Sept. 3 opener against Hawaii.

The way they have lost games in going 6-18 the last two years has inspired a crusade.

“Our personal challenge is for our young men to trust each other in the fourth quarter,” MacIntyre said. “So, our job is to finish the fourth quarter and just trust each other in the heat of battle and just execute your job. Those are the things we’ve been talking about.”

“When you’ve been there before (in close games) you can kind of relax and do that,” MacIntyre said. “The maturation process of a team, especially where we were with all the young guys playing, when you’re a freshman you’re kind of just glad to be there and be on the team. As a sophomore…you’re glad you are starting.”

Now, entering 2015, MacIntyre said, “It is kind of like, ‘I’m tired of just playing, I want to win. I want to be successful.’ I’ve seen that in them. I’ve seen their attitude and work ethic change. I’ve seen the overall maturity of our football team.”

MacIntyre says he’s also seen, “them grow up, the way their bodies changed and their physicality, our whole team has done that.”

As examples, he cites record-setting junior quarterback Sefo Liufau, who is now 6-feet, 4 inches and up 10 pounds to 240, and junior linebacker Kenneth Olugbode, who is up 15 pounds to 220.

MacIntyre said, “I expect us to win this year, I really do. I think we’re right there and definitely could have won a few last year and didn’t do it. I feel like our team has matured to that spot. Being a junior-sophomore team (now), they’ve been there.”

MacIntyre said, “We have a lot of 20-year olds, not a lot of teenagers — which I’m kind of excited about.”